Thursday, March 09, 2006

Howard blames asylum seekers for "Children Overboard" scandal

Australian Prime Minister John Howard says the refugees he falsely accused of throwing their children into the ocean deserve no apology because they did the next worst thing - "they irresponsibly sank the damn boat, which put their children in the water"...Refugee rights advocate, Jack Smit, from the West Australian-based group Project SafeCom says: "Refugees don't sink damned boats, Mr Howard!" He said in a media statement: "The Prime Minister remains one of the very few politicians in Australia who maintains the slandering descriptive word 'illegals' to denote boatpeople."

"Refugees rarely sink their boats," said Mr Smit, "Usually it is the people smugglers who do the sinking, sometimes the sinking is due to physical sabotage by sting operators working from countries such as Indonesia, and sometimes these sting operators are contracted by countries such as Australia."



Petty in The Age

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