By Ross Taylor
It hardly made any news.
An Indonesian ‘people smuggler’ last week successfully
appealed to the full bench of the Australian Federal Court to have his
conviction eventually quashed.
This particular people smuggler served two years in a
maximum security prison in Perth (Hakea Prison) and Albany for smuggling asylum
seekers from Indonesia to Christmas Island in 2010.
He has told stories of how he was denied the services
of an interpreter, how he was stripped naked on numerous occasions, being
chained by his hands and feet and being locked-down from 7am until 7pm on most
nights.
This prisoner, at the time the offence occurred, was 13
years of age.
Ali Yasmin, now 19 years of age, was one of some 50
children recruited by people smuggling syndicates in Indonesia to work on boats
as deck and kitchen hands at the peak of the asylum seeker debacle.
These children, many of whom were pre-pubescent, were
from remote and very poor villages in the east of the sprawling archipelago to
our north, with their families being offered up to $200.00 for the services of
their sons for ostensibly two weeks work on board a fishing boat.
In an area where many people live on $70.00 per month,
the offer was highly attractive, given that many of these kids worked on boats
routinely.
The then Labor Government, desperate to be tough on
people smugglers, had introduced mandatory sentencing for anyone carrying or
assisting in the transport of asylum seekers from Indonesia to Australia. They
did not intend to catch young children in this net, but that’s what can happen
when poorly thought-out legislation is enacted by a government under enormous
political pressure.
Ali Yasmin, like a number of his friends, was
convicted and sentenced to jail in an adult maximum security prison here in WA.
This was despite a doctor certifying that he was pre-pubescent and documents
being provided to confirm the age of this young boy.
To think that a country such as Australia could have
incarcerated children in this way – alongside drug dealers, paedophiles and
bank robbers – and subject them to strip searches, lock downs and no access to
their families back in Indonesia, is almost unthinkable for a nation that
prides itself as being decent, caring
and respectful of human rights.
It was only through the Indonesia Institute, several leading media groups (including The West Australian) and human rights
advocates, was the then Gillard Government forced to release these children and
send them back to where they rightfully belonged: with their parents.
Ali Yasmin, being represented by human rights lawyers,
last week won a ruling that now forces the Australian Attorney-General, George
Brandos, to exercise his ‘legal duty’ to refer the boys appeal to the WA Court
of Appeal where the team is hopeful the conviction will be quashed.
That a nation such as Australia knowingly allowed
foreign children to be locked-up for years with hardened adult criminals leaves
a stain on all of us. But to now force children like Yasmin to ‘fight’ in the
courts to have his conviction overturned is appalling.
Our new PM, Malcolm Turnbull, should move immediately
to have all the convictions of these children quashed, and to also make a
formal apology on behalf of Australia to their families for the inhuman treatment
of children who should never have been placed in our maximum security prisons
in the first place.
Ross
Taylor AM is the President of the
WA-based Indonesia Institute (Inc)
October 2015
This is really wonderful news.....congratulations to II Director Colin Singer, who has worked tirelessly to get Ali Yasmin released. Now to launch the case for wrongful imprisonment and substantial monetary damages on his behalf.
ReplyDeleteAgree Peter. Colin is the unsung hero whose dedication to these children has been overlooked or ignored by those who should be ashamed.
ReplyDelete