The US and Israel began bombing Iran on 28 February, killing its Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. A few days after the Iranian women’s soccer team arrived in Australia. On 2 March, after the Iranian players remained silent during the Iranian anthem, they were labelled “traitors” by the Iranian government.
This was followed by days of demands that the Australian government grant the players asylum in Australia. After an extraordinary media commotion, the Australian government granted asylum to five members of the Iranian women’s soccer team on 10 March.
Photos of a beaming Home Affairs Minister, Tony Burke, posing with the footballers were plastered across the media, as the government rode a wave of sympathy for the footballers facing danger from US bombs (backed by Australia) and potential persecution by the Iranian government.
But the warm glow was short-lived. Labor’s welcoming gesture to the footballers was followed by the government rushing new laws through parliament to give the Home Affairs Minister power to prevent temporary visa holders from specific countries from entering Australia.
No prizes for guessing that the visa ban law was aimed at preventing Iranians, like the footballers, from entering the country and claiming asylum.
True to form, on 26 March, Tony Burke imposed a six-month ban, preventing Iranians with visitor visas from entering Australia.
The ban immediately affects around 7200 Iranian visa holders who could have travelled (or be on their way) to Australia. The ban can be extended further in six month blocks.
The blanket ban is an extension of the government’s quiet, but ruthless, practice of cancelling the visa on arrival of anyone they suspect might claim asylum after they arrive. Just before the bombing started, an Iranian mother, whose daughter was due to give birth, was deemed to be an asylum risk, detained on arrival and deported to Iran.
The visa ban law is another brick in the wall of Labor’s “Fortress Australia” anti-refugee policies; an extension of the infamous “Detain, Deter, Deny” slogans that described the anti-refugee policies of the Liberals under John Howard and Philip Ruddock.
The new law allows the Home Affairs Minister to place the ban on any country—Lebanon and Myanmar are also likely targets.
Iranian refugees
There are around 82 Iranians in detention in Australia, many of them earmarked for deportation and indefinite detention on Nauru.
There are also hundreds of Iranian asylum seekers trapped in Indonesia by Australia’s 2014 ban on accepting refugees processed in Indonesia.
Iranian refugees sent to PNG in 2013 are still being held there, while scores of Iranians who were held on Manus and Nauru are being denied permanent visas in Australia.
As on so many other occasions, Labor is putting people directly in danger by refusing them asylum.
In 2003, the Australian government denied permanent visas to Iraqi refugees in Australia because it was part of US imperialism’s “Coalition of the Willing” invasion of Iraq that was supposedly going to introduce democracy there.
Boats of Tamil asylum seekers were turned around (and are still being turned around) because successive Australian governments are more concerned about their relationship with dictators in Sri Lanka than with the human rights of refugees.
Meanwhile the secretive ASIO adverse security assessments that were used to deny protection visas to Tamil refugees are again being used to deny visas to Palestinian refugees.
A Palestinian father of five became the latest victim when his visa was cancelled and he was detained in Villawood detention centre after Easter.
The refugee and anti-war movements must demand Labor open the borders and provide protection for Iranians, Palestinians and for all refugees.
By Ian Rintoul
