Pakistani? Afghani? Does it matter?

On the December 6, 2004 the Government called on a citizenship case in the High Court against Mazhar. The government’s position was that he could not be granted citizenship because he was either stateless or a Pakistani citizen, and if he wasn't a Pakistani citizen he was an Afghan citizen. This was DIMIA's way of saying they didn't have a clue about Mazhar’s nationality, and they didn't care just as long as the baby was not an Australian and they could legally deport him.

The case was adjourned until December 13 while extra information was sought. After two hours of arguments Justice Hayne stated, "on the evidence presented it is at least arguable that the parents are Afghan citizens as they have always claimed" and refused the application. This was a mortal blow to all of us trying hard to get a degree of justice for this family.

The lawyer for the Bakhtiyaris, Jeremy Moore, was stricken with the verdict. But then Justice Hayne allowed the Government to stick the boot right in and demanded costs against the baby. Fancy asking a one-year-old baby to pay court costs for a case he didn't know anything about.

As a result of this verdict, the Government was then able to inflict on this family the most hideous cruelty, so cruel that their neighbours likened the behaviour of DIMIA to that of storm troopers in a totalitarian regime. All the children at St Ignatius and St Aloysius were devastated at the treatment of their friends just as they were preparing for Christmas.

The reports show that at 7am on December 18, 2004 about 50 guards stormed into the Bakhtiyari house and dragged all of the children from their beds. Nagina was not allowed to put on her scarf, Roqia could not change the baby or give him a bottle, and all the other children were terrified.

This attack came out of the blue. I had talked to them on Friday and been invited for Sunday lunch. Even with the initial set back of the High Court decision they were optimistic about their future, as all the other people they had been imprisoned with had now been granted visas. The Bakhtiyaris knew they were the only Afghani children left without visas and they really believed they would get theirs before Christmas. Their cousins had been found to be genuine refugees a few months earlier, after being in Woomera and Baxter with them for over three years, so we were all hopeful.

I walked down to the house at 2am on the Saturday and I was overcome with a sense of dread, and a fear that I would never see them again. People were awake in the house but the alarm still hadn't gone off in my mind. Walking home I almost convinced myself I was being fanciful, that they would be there on Sunday and that everything would be fine.

But they had been taken to the Port Augusta "housing estate" where Senator Vanstone claimed they would be better off. It beggars belief that such traumatised children could be better off in a prison hundreds of kilometres from their friends, but she would not budge in spite of the nationwide outcry.

On the December 30 the media of Australia witnessed the kidnapping and deportation of this family on a hired jet to nowhere. Senator Vanstone had been informed they were from Afghanistan and at this point not one member of the media had the guts or the nous to ask for the evidence, except Matthew Abraham of the ABC.

The last Australia saw of them was as they disappeared in a jet, peering from the windows in despair, white faced and tormented. A rumour started a day later that they were in prison in Bangkok but this proved to be untrue. Monty, managed to get an email to his friends from Dubai expressing their sadness and upset at having nowhere to go. He said that money changed hands in Dubai but he did not know what it was for.

On January 2, 2005 word came that Pakistan had allowed them to enter but had denied them a hotel room because they had no papers. Mazhar was forced to sleep on the road in the snow and almost perished. A baby boy, as Australian as I am, dumped in a foreign country and still Senator Vanstone assured Australia they had had a very, very, fair go. I wonder how Roqia and Ali will explain this cruelty to Mazhar when he is old enough to understand?

News from Afghanistan was scarce for weeks during which time I hardly slept and could barely stop crying. Then, on my birthday I received the Freedom of Information documents that Roqia had asked for in September 2004, and the madness of the beaurocrats in DIMIA became blindingly clear.