Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

Marilyn Shepherd: "The Department of Immigration said the agreement was "no admission of guilt"."

That flatly contradicts your claim that Philipa Goodwin admitted that she tortured children, doesn't it?

You say "Locking up children is torture", but where did Philipa Goodwin admit she "tortured" children?

Once again you have disappointed me. You said you had access to an admission by Philipa Goodwin, a Department of Immigration official, that she tortured children. That would be an extraordinary, indeed ground shaking thing if true.

Now, as is your usual practice, link us to a source stating the exact opposite.

You are obviously a very compassionate person. You never cease implying that much, in fact.

Doesn't it worry you that the causes you undertake may be fatally jeopardised by your noteworthy tendency to make stark empirical claims either unsupported by evidence, or (over and over and over) starkly refuted by any such evidence that you provide?

Alan, temporary protection visas are gone, the Pacific solution is gone, detention as a first resort is gone.

Read Evans' speech and stop going about Rudd being a liar and a fraud without supporting evidence.

And Eliot, read this and consider. Locking up children is torture: it is forbidden under the refugee convention and the convention on the rights of the child and therefore it breaches the civil and political rights and the convention against torture.

Saturday, March 4, 2006

Eleven-year-old Iranian refugee boy, Shayan Badraie, who suffered psychological injuries during his time spent inside Australia's immigration detention centres, will receive a Federal Government payout of AU$400,000 in compensation. The government will also pay his family's legal bill of more than $1 million.

Between 2000 and 2002 the Badraie family were incarcerated behind the razorwire of the (now mothballed) Woomera Detention Facility, a remote desert camp in outback South Australia - and later sent to the Villawood Detention Centre in Sydney. In 2001, video footage of his condition was smuggled out of Villawood, inciting national debate over Prime Minister John Howard's controversial policy of detaining children.

Badraie's family lawyer, Rebecca Gilsenan, said the family are "looking forward to living a normal life in the community. The settlement will enable the treatment he needs to somehow rectify the damage done in the detention centres. The fact the Government has settled the case indicates a serious concern on their part they were going to be found guilty of negligence," Gilsenan told reporters.

Shayan, his father and stepmother arrived in Australia in 2000, and were sent immediately to the notorious Woomera desert camp. During his 17 months incarceration, Shayan stopped drinking, eating and speaking.

"He witnessed a series of incredibly traumatic and violent events, the sort of events no adult or no child should be exposed to," Gilsenan said. "Within a year of being detained at the detention centre... he had developed psychiatric illness to the point of diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder and later depression," she said.

The court heard evidence from former senior immigration official Philippa Godwin that detention could damage the mental health of refugees - directly contradicting the Government's claims the centres were safe. Opposition immigration spokesman Tony Burke said: "Children should never have been put in detention and money will never undo the damage and pain."

The Department of Immigration said the agreement was "no admission of guilt". Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone says she does not believe a $400,000 is a backdown. Vanstone said an offer was made to the Badraie family's lawyer some time ago but they turned it down.

Compared with similar countries, Australia has some of the toughest policies in the world against refugee arrivals. Policies include immediate mandatory detention of boat arrivals, the detention of workers and students who overstay their visas are sent to detention camps under harsh conditions. Immigration detainees often languish in limbo with some up to six years while their cases are being heard. These camps have been condemned by many international human rights groups.

Greens senator Kerry Nettle says "hundreds of children have been mentally scarred by their time in immigration detention and further claims are planned." She blames the Federal Government's policy of mandatory detention.

"The Government has accepted the responsibility for the health consequences of their policy of mandatory detention," Senator Nettle said. "There is a raft of children, we are talking hundreds of children, and adults, who have had their mental health significantly impacted by the policy of mandatory detention."

She rejected that the Federal Government deserve congratulations over settlement: "To have gone through these proceedings, and spent the amount of money they have spent, to put Shayan's mother in the witness box for two weeks, is not an indication of a willingness and public accountability by the Government to accept responsibility for their actions," Senator Nettle said.

Lawyer Rebecca Gilsenan says the landmark case may pave the way for more litigation by other refugee families. It is the first time the Department has conceded that a child has been psychologically harmed in its detention.

Gilsenan says the outcome sets a precedent for other detainees. "The problems that Shayan experienced were systemic problems rather than ones that were just specific to him, although the particular treatment that he received was disgraceful," she said. "So it's quite possible that there are other children or even adults out there who lived in a similar environment during that time in immigration detention and possibly have similar problems."

She says she hopes the systemic problems highlighted in the case will now be addressed. "I can only hope that the Government takes notice of this and doesn't continue to spend taxpayer money on having to compensate people for treating them in a disgraceful way in immigration detention."

Sources:

• "Badraie payout not 'a backdown'". The Age, Melbourne, March 5, 2006
• Dan Box "Visas follow payout". The Australian, March 4, 2006
• "Detention children scarred: Greens". News Limited, March 3, 2006
• Nicolette Burke "Compensation for Iraqi refugee, 11". News Limited, March 3, 2006
• "Govt reaches settlement with boy over immigration centre experiences". Australian Broadcasting Corporation, March 2, 2006

Marilyn, hi!

Can I take it that you won't provide a link to any source confirming your claim that Philipa Goodwin admitted that she tortured children?

And that I can forget about drawing anyone's attention to such a statement by Philipa, because contrary to your claim, the statement simply doesn't exist?

And that you're just letting me down gently by ignoring this my most recent request for the evidence? Is that it?

You can tell me. I'll be fine.

What would you like Rudd to do to fix those problems that were all caused by Howard - twitch his nose like Samantha in Bewitched and it will all be solved?

Alan, you hate Rudd and it wouldn't matter what he did you would still hate him. Even though he has never hurt you or anyone else.

Marilyn Shepherd: "Eliot, what the hell does Georgia have to do with locking up young kids alone in Australia?"

Well, the emerging child refugee situation there? I thought you'd care?

I mean, if they come here as refugees, they will be typical of those who might fall into the clutches of Philipa Goodwin and other Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs torturers.

Is she still with the Department? Do you have a link to her admission that she tortured children? I'd like to see that if you could provide it. Thanks.

Alan, you simply don't care, you want them to use the damn thing for the "illegals" but it will not happen.

Eliot, what the hell does Georgia have to do with locking up young kids alone in Australia?

Here's the link to the eye-witness account of 'boys' being shot in Georgia.

Lined up along the roadside they thought they were about to be executed. Two boys approached in a car she said. Both were shot dead. A man in the street killed.

Three more boys gunned down she said, but she doesn't know if they died.

Marilyn Shepherd: "Godwin admitted responsibility. Got that? Do you think I simply made it up?"

Oh, goodness gracious no, mercy me. I'd just love to see the reference for myself, that's all. It's far too important to go undocumented or unseen by the world.

You know, where Philipa Goodwin actually admitted torturing children. Have you got that reference?

I mean, torturing children is actually a criminal offence quite apart from anything else.

Let's make the world completely, fully aware of what Philipa did. And admitted to doing, as you have said.

So, have you got a reference for that?

I mean, what happened to Philipa? Is she still with DIMIA? She was only acting-Deputy Secretary, so I hate to think a self-confessed child torturer is still on the loose inside the Department

Also, there are about 150,000 Georgian refugees crowded into a camp outside the Russian occupied zone around Gori, I hear.

A lot of them will be children, some of the orphaned due to Russian execution squads keeping busy around the occupied zone, judging from this morning's eyewitness reports on the ABC's AM radio programme. (I'll get the transcripts shortly for you, when they go on-line)

So many of those children could be coming here soon. It's important the authorities over there know that Philipa Goodwin actually admitted torturing children, especially if she's still with the Department.

So, let's get her, hey?

Alan, Rudd had nothing to do with the Christmas Island concentration camp, he will not have anything to do with the Christmas Island concentration camp, and it has not “just” been finished.

Except to take down miles of razor wire fences.

As for Godwin, I don't know why she and all her colleagues are not in jail because they should be in cells close to Ruddock, Howard, Downer and the rest of the rotten bastards.

Now stop trying to bait me over people you don't give a flying frog about.

Godwin admitted responsibility. Got that? Do you think I simply made it up?

Jacquie Everett ihas almost finished writing a book about Shayan. Why don't you buy a copy?

Marilyn Shepherd: "Shayan Badraei settled for $400,000 compensation last year for what the former secretary of the department, Philipa Goodwin, admitted was negligence and torture."

I'm glad Philipa Goodwin finally admitted that she tortured the children. I tried Googling that to find out more, but nothing came up.

I did find this, though:

After months of hearings, the boy's lawyers accepted an out-of-court settlement offer yesterday of ''$400,000 by government solicitors'', a spokeswoman for legal firm Maurice Blackburn Cashman said.

Would an out-of-court settlement normally involve "admissions"?

Where did Philipa Goodwin admit "she tortured the children"?

Eliot, I don't suppose you really care, but some of the children were smuggled out of the country with their parents and have settled as citizens of New Zealand. Shayan Badraei settled for $400,000 compensation last year for what the former secretary of the department, Philipa Goodwin, admitted was negligence and torture.

He is also a citizen and suffering still.

Thanks for this important information, Marilyn.

For those interested, here's a link to the 2001 Tony Stephens article, Barbed-wire playground, that Marilyn mentions.

The circumstances of a number of children are mentioned in it, including a boy Shayan Badraie, a girl of 15 called 'Qamar' for the purposes of the article, a Rwandan boy called "Benjamin", 15 year old Parviz Avesta, 13 year old was Shana Avesta amongst others.

These would all be young adults now. Have you any news of their situtation now, Marilyn?

Within Buddhism the belief is that one inhabits hell realms within this life. It isn't something that comes after death although if the current life is a poor showing then future hell realms of greater ferocity await. One of the most readily identifiable hell realms is that inhabited by "hungry ghosts" who are ever hungry and never satiated. I think this is a dominant hell realm by which I mean I think there are very many "hungry ghosts" in our world.

I suggest that Ruddock is currently living in a hell realm of his own manufacture. The moral collapse of Ruddock over the years of his ministerial authority was evident in his face and eyes.

Others of the same period also occupied their own hell realms - Amanda Vanstone was clearly a person capable of eating her own weight in cheese at a single sitting which is punishment enough. John H. was married to Mrs John H. who, as someone else put it, was the Hyacinth Bouquet of Kirribilli House. Ghastly.

Then there is "Thick" Mick Keelty - for whom a special hell awaits in which he will be in unceasing dialogue with the ghosts of the SIEV-X.

People become the punishment they deserve.

Alan, you flat out hate Kevin Rudd so you would blame him if an asteroid destroyed earth tomorrow.

Now, read my articles about Ruddock's cruelty towards people you hate as much as you hate Rudd and then get back to me with some commonsense.

Rudd will not allow that place to be used and Michael Danby's statement that it is like a nazi concentration camp will seal its fate.

So if you cannot begin to talk one word of sense, say nothing.

Unless Rudd locks up a bunch of kids today and doesn't let them out for five years or so.

Dr Sev Ozdowski was the HREOC commissioner responsible for the inquiry into children in detention. He gave some additional background to it at a recent speech.

After HREOC approved the Terms of Reference for the Inquiry I met with Minister Ruddock and informed him of the Commission’s decision. The Minister in response expressed his utmost displeasure in no uncertain terms. The Minister simply told me that “if you dare to conduct the Inquiry there will be no job for you as long as I sit around the Cabinet table”.

On 28 November 2001 the National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention was publicly announced.

It took over two years to complete.  In April 2004 I presented the then Attorney General Hon. Philip Ruddock MP with copy of my finalized report for tabling in Parliament under HREOC Act.  The report was tabled on the Budget Day 13 May 2004 by Hon. Tony Abbott, MP, Leader of the House (and not by the Attorney General as it would be normally the case).