![]() ![]() The pro-refugee network is in fact a vast mosaic of overlapping networks: lawyers, church people, human-rights advocates, welfare workers, political activists and ordinary people from highly skilled professionals with specific expertise to the many thousands who have joined a grassroots movement to oppose the Government's treatment of asylum seekers. The outcome was a win for refugee advocates who had fought a campaign of "email activism" to get the issue onto the floor of Parliament. Two weeks later the Government issued Ebrahim with a permanent protection visa, allowing him to be released from detention and re-united with his children. Questions were asked in Parliament, Simon Crean took up the call, and Natasha Stott Despoja said she would be a sponsor for the children. But within days the photograph was published in newspapers in Australia and the Government came under pressure to allow the children to visit their father. He didn't know their father was in detention. He stood grinning with Sara's hand in his and Safda standing next to him. SOON AFTER I wrote this John Howard was photographed with the two children at a football game in Bali. ![]() The Government continues to refuse them visas to visit their father. ![]() ![]() His motherless children are still in Indonesia. God be with you."Įbrahim is still in detention. But you, my friends, we will never, never forget your kindness. (The cards were prepared and paid for by one of Betty's friends in Goulburn.) In his message, printed inside the card, Ebrahim said: "The desert has shown no mercy for our tears and heartache or the cry of the children for their papa. The little boy Safda stands solemnly in front of his mother.Īt the time he sent the cards Ebrahim was in Woomera detention centre. Beside him, Endong is slight and beautiful with long black hair. Ebrahim is a strong-looking man with bushy eyebrows and a square jaw. On the front is a family photo taken before the family's separation. Fate has stuck the knife into Ebrahim, and twisted it.Īfter Betty's phone call, I pulled out the card that Ebrahim sent to his Australian friends last year, after his wife's death, to thank them for their support. As the anniversary approaches I have been thinking of Ebrahim, struck by a double tragedy: the separation from family and imprisonment that is the fate of asylum seekers in Australia and the appalling bad luck that saw his wife passing down a Kuta street on the night of the Bali bombing. Ebrahim is to be allowed to go to Adelaide for a memorial service for the anniversary on the weekend. She had some information about one of "her boys" in the Baxter detention centre, Ebrahim Sammaki, whose wife, Endong was killed in the Bali bombing. Betty Dixon from Goulburn called this morning. ![]()
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