Deep Fried Lettuce
It's much easier to make La Migra Vanstone believe you're about to be persecuted if you've admit you've tortured and butchered thousands of people than if you say you're a shia' or political dissident or pacifist christian?
It's always been the case that the elite is treated far better than the hoi polloi, and the immigration system is no exception to that rule. Look at Pinochet for example.
If you were fleeing Saddam's Iraq during the 1980s you got no sympathy at all from the migra. Even after it was declared part of the "Axis of Evil" it wasn't enough to say you'd spoken out against the regime or declined to serve in the military -- you had to point to concrete examples of threats.
In Somalia, people who had suffered torture at the hands of warlords running the place got turned away because there was no "state" to persecute them, and torture by armed gangs wasn't enough. On the other hand, if a state recognised by Australia had arisen there and the torturers had fled THEY could have claimed asylum.
Now personally, I have nothing wrong with the idea of seeing to it that even torturers aren't tortured, but
a) They should be sent off somewhere that they will be judged fairly on the basis of what they've done and sanctioned appropriately - the International Criminal Court to which Australia is a signatory is an obvious place.
b) People who really ARE at risk ought to be allowed to come here and not live behind bars. It's ludicrous that people about which theri is no damning evidence and who are probably very grateful to be out of the place they left are seen as a security risk and locked up, while those against there IS damning evidence can walk free.
Fran
