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Teens Join Hunger Strike
as Australia Rejects Immigrants
PERTH, Australia, Aug 28 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Two Iranian teenagers are among hunger-striking inmates at a Western Australian detention center for illegal immigrants, authorities said Tuesday.
Sharna Avesta, 13, and her brother Parvis, 17, have joined 40 other detainees in refusing food at the Curtin center - near Derby, in Western Australia's northwest region - social workers reported after visiting the pair Monday, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
They said Parvis had sewn his lips together with sutures, and was weaker than his sister.
Both teens had apparently refused food for almost 20 days.
The welfare officers visited the detention center after an audio recording of a weak-sounding Sharna was broadcast on the Nine TV network over the weekend.
In her message, Sharna asked Australians to open their hearts to people in immigration detention.
She said her family's visa applications had been refused and that they had been at the facility for two years, said AFP.
The Western Australian Community Development Department said the teenagers were resolved to continuing their strike.
In Canberra, the Immigration Department claimed reasons for the hunger strike, which began on August 9, were allegedly unclear.
Meanwhile, Australia defied growing pressure Tuesday to allow a shipload of 1000 asylum seekers to land on its territory as three nations began a complex legal and diplomatic wrangle over their fate, AFP reported.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) called for urgent talks between Australia, Indonesia and Norway to try to find a solution as a contingent of troops arrived with medical supplies on the Australian territory of Christmas Island, where a major relief operation has begun to help the 438 illegal immigrants now on hunger strikes aboard the Norwegian freighter Tampa.
Some of the asylum seekers, who include dozens of women and children, are sick, distressed or pregnant, and live amid deteriorating conditions aboard the seriously overcrowded ship, AFP said.
Its captain, Arne Rinnan, told Australian radio that 22 members of the group had diarrhea, some had scabies and many had stomach problems, while still others were on hunger strikes.
"They're starting to get more and more sick," he said. "Yesterday afternoon, they went on a hunger strike. They refused to take food and water, except for the children and four pregnant women."
Rinnan said the ship had enough food to feed the group for between seven and 10 days longer if the hunger strike persisted.
The asylum seekers are mostly from Afghanistan, but a few are reported to be from Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
They were rescued late on Sunday from a sinking wooden ferry with an Indonesian crew.
As the Tampa set sail for Indonesia, the asylum seekers demanded to be taken to Australia or another western country, allegedly threatening to jump overboard if the ship went to Indonesia.
But, Prime Minister John Howard announced Monday that Australia would not accept the group, saying they were the responsibility of Norway and Indonesia, AFP said.
Howard claimed Australia had the reputation of being an easy target due to what he described as generous laws on illegal immigrants, but said its facilities for looking after unauthorized arrivals were allegedly at the breaking point.
Immigration Minister, Philip Ruddock, said the ship would not be permitted to dock in Australia.
"It is certainly not our problem," the Australian Minister added, as quoted by AFP.
The issue arose as ethnic communities in Australia accused political leaders of increasingly nurturing racial hatred against immigrants, particularly Muslims.
Extremist political firebrand Pauline Hanson, re-entering the controversial immigration debate, accused the Muslims of Australia - in a verbal attack reviled by leaders of ethnic groups - of having little respect for the society.
Against the background of an ethnic leaders summit in the New South Wales parliament complex, Hanson, who leads the anti-immigration One Nation political party, accused Muslim immigrants of attempting to impose Islamic culture on Australia.
"A lot of these people are Muslims - they have no respect for the Christian way of life that this country is based on," she told the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, in a reference to recent gang rape attacks blamed on Muslim juveniles.
It was perplexing as to why Hanson drew a link between Islam, a religion that bans any form of extra-marital sex, and the recent rape cases.
New South Wales Prime Minister Bob Carr joined the chorus of anti-ethnic verbal attacks when he publicly blamed the rise of ethnic gangs for an escalation in violent crime, which includes heroin trafficking, murder and racially motivated rape.
"The fact is... one part of the crime problem we face as a community, is based on the recruitment of ethnic communities," Carr said. "I want us to face up to that."
Australia's immigrant population, especially arrivals from Arabic-speaking countries and Asia, now fear a racist backlash.
Chinese-born state MP, Peter Wong, who convened Thursday's meeting, accused Carr of fostering racial hatred and employing the same tactics as Hanson by typecasting migrants as more likely to commit violent crimes.
Wong said that the so-called "ethnic crime wave" was a myth. Nevertheless, extensive media coverage of the rape investigation has led to an increase in racist abuse - including death threats - against immigrants.
Wong called on Carr "to state publicly that crime is not caused by ethnicity or migration."
"We cannot become the hub of the Asia-Pacific region while we denigrate migrants."
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