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Red Tape And Razorwire
Have you ever failed at school or university? Remember a time when things weren’t going your way because you couldn’t work out what you wanted or maybe you were starting to process difficult situations from your past and this impacted on your day to day existence? I do.
I remember being half way through my second year at uni when it all seemed to overwhelm me. I was failing and I couldn’t work out why I just didn’t want to be there. The frustrating thing was that I didn’t know where I wanted to be.
Now imagine you’re 5,000 miles from home, you haven’t got a family network, you’re failing badly at uni. You go before an academic board which asks you why you should be allowed to continue your studies. You give them a letter from your counsellor and explain your state of depression.
They agree that you should be allowed one more chance but with conditions: that you must pass at least half of your subjects in the next semester. Three weeks into the next semester the head of the International students department tells you that, in fact, you have been expelled from the course and calls immigration.
After a twenty minute interview, immigration chooses to cancel your student visa and issues you with a bridging visa which allows you to stay in the country but doesn’t allow you to study or work.
What do you do?
For those who may have noticed, Ali Humayan is a 26 year old Pakistani man who has been stuck in the Villawood Detention Centre since January 2005. His crime? Working while on a bridging visa.
Humayan is an affable and well spoken young man. He is experiencing what is tantamount to prison where food is served up the same each day, guards patrol who have little training around the sensitivity of the experience of the inmates and more recently, he shares a maximum security facility with a double murderer, paedophiles and rapists.
“I have no criminal convictions and don’t understand why I am being treated like a violent criminal,” he declares.
Brought before the Refugee Review Tribunal recently, Humayan claimed asylum on the grounds that he would be persecuted as a bisexual Christian. Giles Short was the Tribunal member who made the call. “The applicant was not in fact bisexual… [his relationship] was simply the product of the situation where only partners of the same sex were available and said nothing about his sexual orientation.”
With a little frustration in his voice, Humayan points out: “Well, that’s interesting because when [my partner] Julio comes to visit me we [only] hold hands [while] the heterosexual partners engage in sexual conduct with each other. I just reckon we are acting appropriately.”
But while the issue of his sexuality has been brought into question by the Refugee Review tribunal and later upheld by the Federal Magistrates Court, the reason he had ended up in detention in the first place all settles on the representation of events I began with.
If Humayan’s claims are true, then a punitive bureaucrat in Canberra is the cause of this travesty.
Noor Fleming is the International Students Advisor at the University of Canberra. On the website it states: “Ms Fleming is the first point of contact for international students to discuss ongoing progress or problems… [providing] advice and ongoing support on personal or family matters, and in dealings with the University, government departments or community organisations. The Office has particular responsibility for students sponsored by the Australian government, home governments or other agencies.”
When I contacted the university I was informed that Noor Fleming was no longer working for the university. She has since retired.
A discussion with the university’s legal officer, Greg Jones, suggested that I view the transcript of the case. When pushed about Ali’s case, Jones made this statement: “The university is bound by the ESOS Act which means that the university has a statutory obligation to notify immigration officials when students fail to meet or maintain the requirements of their course.”
In fact, a tour of the ESOS (Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000) Act states simply: “Once an overseas student has enrolled in a course, the registered provider must not allow them to defer commencement of their studies, or suspend their studies, except on the grounds of illness, evidenced by a doctor’s certificate, or other exceptional compassionate circumstances beyond the control of the student, for example, bereavement. If a student defers or suspends their studies on any other grounds, the registered provider must report the student as not complying with visa conditions to DIMA via PRISMS.”
This is when Humayan was called into an interview with immigration officials. “Twenty minutes after the interview had started they told me that they were cancelling my student visa.” Humayan laments.
Now the case has been taken up by Kerry Nettle from the Greens and a barrister who is acting for Humayan.
Regardless of the nature of the laws and what the university is required to do, some questions about the fairness of the law and how the decision to revoke his visa was reached brings into question the very nature of our immigration laws.
It may be that Humayan was over stating his depressive state to begin with. Who knows? But what is really at question here is the capacity for individuals charged with the authority to have someone placed into a detention centre where they sit in a state of unresolved limbo.
What sort of a world are we creating here? Why on earth can’t Humayan be given the benefit of the doubt and be allowed to continue with his studies? Instead of leaving him in a desperately depressing detention centre, put him on some kind of bridging visa that allows him to study or work while the case is heard, where he has the opportunity to restore his own position. Strict reporting conditions could be placed on the visa which might include surrendering his passport to authorities and making regular trips to local authorities.
Humayan’s case is not so much about his sexuality as it is about the inhumane way our government treats people who have breached the rules of their visa. They are not criminals. They do not present a threat to our national security. They have broken a law. Yes. But is the treatment commensurate with the crime?
When we encourage our government to erode our civil liberties in the name of anything, we are becoming the unwitting accomplices in the gradual collapse of democratic process. Fear is no way to govern. It buys into our most basic instincts.
From this trickle may come a flow of legislation that one day may mean you get a knock on the door. What have you done?
Picture – Julio (left) and Ali (right).
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