ENDEAVOUR HILLS HALLAM DOVETON
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Tuesday, 10 October, 2023
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Voice voting begins
Mayor for Mulgrave
Panther ton in vain
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‘Crucial’ vaxes axed
40¢ Inc. GST
Desperate asylum seekers protest over unacceptable ‘limbo’
Lost for a decade By Cam Lucadou-Wells
Protesters at the Hotham electorate office on 4 October. 365729 from their partners and children trapped and in danger in their homelands. Razi says many suffer from mental health afflictions. “Eleven years of this is too long. “We escaped from Iran because we had problems with the regime. We can’t return because the regime is killing people. It’s a very dangerous regime.” Narges Shaterian, her husband and three kids have been on temporary bridging visas
for 10 years. They started a court process in 2018 to fight for permanent protection. They are still awaiting a second hearing in the federal court. “We’ll be back here (at the protest) next week as well. We’ll continue until we get a response – they’ve ignored us for 11 years.” She has been contributing taxes, running businesses such as a pizza shop. But her children are charged and treated as ‘international students’ to study at university.
Picture: CAM LUCADOU-WELLS Also at the protest is her 33-year-old son Nooshad, who attained a Masters in IT in Iran and wants to continue his education. Stricken with cerebral palsy, he can’t afford to study at uni, can’t get NDIS and he often sits idle in his chair at the back of the pizza shop. Narges’ daughter Nooshzad worked two jobs so to pay ‘international student’ fees of $30,000 a year to study for a Masters in Medical Imaging. Continued page 6
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Dozens of asylum seekers have staged weeks of protests, including a hunger strike, outside Hotham MP and Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil’s electorate office. Entering their fourth week, they are among 10,000 or so asylum-seekers in “limbo” in Australia for about a decade. Many of them are thought to live in Melbourne’s South East. They say they continue to be sidelined despite the Government’s pledge to fix a “defective” refugee protection system. Among them is 60-year-old Saeed Razi who after 10 years on a temporary visa has had enough. He waged a five day hunger strike at the O’Neill office until he collapsed on the footpath and was hospitalised on 21 September. Two weeks later, he was back at the protest site. “I went on a hunger strike so people will listen to us and to have a voice.” Razi, of Sydenham, fled from Iran in 2013. He’s been working in Australia, paying taxes but doesn’t get basic benefits – such as Medicare or his children having equal access to university. Some are unable to get loans for homes, cars or even a phone contract. Some deprived of work rights. Day by day, not knowing if they will be deported or detained – and their visas are up for renewal every six months or 12 months While in “limbo”, they are long estranged