The Cornelia Rau case has raised some interesting issues, it will be interesting to see how many others maybe locked up under similar circumstances. It is suprising that given the amount of documentation that is recorded at our border entry points that it didn’t show up as unusal that there was no evidence that the “German” had no recorded point of entry into Australia …
“She had been listed with NSW Police as missing for six months but immigration authorities did not check.“
Illegals, again [John Quiggin]
The government’s position on the Rau case seems pretty clear. Ms Rau was an ‘illegal’, that is, a person found to be in Australia and unable to satisfy the authorities that she had a legitimate right to be here. As was established in apartheid South Africa, where the term originated, illegals have no human or civil rights. They can be locked up in atrocious conditions, denied contact with the outside world and so on. Now the authorities are satisfied about her status, and she has been duly released.
Many commentators, including bloggers, have insisted upon both the term ‘illegal’ and the fact that such people have no human rights. All that is new is the discovery that an ‘illegal’ is anyone the government chooses to detain.
- AFP
0 Responses to “Rau”