“Men on Christmas Island are not ‘rioting.’ They're political prisoners
protesting their indefinite unjust imprisonment.”
~ Kon Karapanagiotidis on Twitter
[Cartoon by Michael Leunig. Hat tip Julian Burnside]
“Men on Christmas Island are not ‘rioting.’ They're political prisoners
protesting their indefinite unjust imprisonment.”
~ Kon Karapanagiotidis on Twitter
[Cartoon by Michael Leunig. Hat tip Julian Burnside]
We welcome thoughtful disagreement.
But we do (ir)regularly moderate comments -- and we *will* delete any with insulting or abusive language. Or if they're just inane. It’s okay to disagree, but pretend you’re having a drink in the living room with the person you’re disagreeing with. This includes me.
PS: Have the honesty and courage to use your real name. That gives added weight to any opinion.
Given that the place is full of rapists, murderers, and other violent thugs, it's got to be one of the dumbest quotes of the day.
ReplyDelete"Full"? Do you have the figures that the Prime Minister does not, Richard?
DeleteBecause there's dumb, and then there's just making it up....
DeleteThey are certainly detaining a NZ war hero who has committed no crime...
Delete@Richard: "Figures released by Australian Immigration Minister Peter Dutton on people detained at Christmas Island showed of the 199 detainees ... four had convictions for rape or sexual assault." There are no murderers.
ReplyDeleteYour move.
I'm basing it on what I heard on RN Radio this morning. The majority of people have been processed, and the ones left are violent offenders who are still being processed.
ReplyDeleteMy figures above come from RNZ this morning ...
ReplyDeleteYes, it is wrong for a war hero, or for anyone, to be arrested when having committed. Heis an unfortunate victim of Australia's bike gang laws. That, however, is a seperate issue to the refugee
ReplyDeleteI'll just say it again, from the Minister's own figures, quoted on RNZ this morning: "199 detainees ... four had convictions for rape or sexual assault." There are no murderers.
DeleteIssue.
ReplyDeletePeter Dutton said on the radio this morning that there are murderers. So perhaps he was lying.
ReplyDeleteYou mean, he was being a politician.
DeleteWell yes, he is a politician, but even politicians have legitimate jobs. Leaving aside the bike gang laws, which are another matter altogether, there is a legitimate job in processing people who turn up unannounced by boat on Australian shores. In defence of the current government, they have stopped the boats. They have processed a backlog of people who were detained, and they are down to just slightly over 200 hard cases. The fact is, whether there are murderers among them or not, the detainees on Christmas island are violent offenders, not the kind of people you'd want moving in next door to you. I think you can tell this from their behaviour, which the above quote tries to legitimise.
Delete"The fact is" Richard that you don't know the facts now, and didn't know the facts when you said "the place is full of rapists, murderers, and other violent thugs." In fact, I doubt even the journalists we're relying on to report these facts really know the facts, but I would have thought that if facts were important to you, you would ascertain them for speaking.
DeleteWell, it might be that I do not know the facts. I'll never run away from that, because I prefer the facts. I took Peter Dutton at his word that they housed violent offenders. There is a maximum security facility, a medium, and a minimum. That is obviously because there is a certain degree of criminality there. The alternative is that there is no criminality and it is all just a big lie. I find it hard to believe it would be a lie. What concerns me most here though, is that you keep promoting the idea that asylum seekers and refugees must be noble people with a love for liberty simply by virtue of being asylum seekers and refugees. That is not just a false idea. It is a dangerous idea.
ReplyDeleteRichard, you said, "What concerns me most here though, is that you keep promoting the idea that asylum seekers and refugees must be noble people with a love for liberty..."
DeleteWhat concerns me here is that you seem to have lost the ability to read and comprehend. I have neither said that, nor promoted that.
Mind you, any emigrants that are noble people who do have a love for liberty need to be able to escape the barbarism of their place of birth. I would open a path for the Ayaan Hirsi Alis of the world. You would have her stay with her arranged husband in a concentration camp on some godforsaken out-of-sight piece of dirt .
I would never close the door to her, or anyone who matches her in spirit, ever. I am not against immigration. I am against an open doors policy where every man and his dog just piles in. Forgive me if I got you wrong, but that is the impression I get from many of the posts on the current refugee problem. The fact is, if a country is to be overwhelmed with people flooding in, then there is no other option than to detain people until they are processed. The alternative is to not detain anyone, which is highly irresponsible and even, in the current context, could be considered treasonous.
Delete