Last week on The Spinoff, Tim Maurice of the Asylum Seekers Support Trust warned Behrouz Boochani, the Iranian who spent six years in an Australian detention centre on Manus Island, that New Zealand may not be the right place to seek asylum. Here Donna Miles-Mojab, Christchurch author and supporter of Boochani, offers a different view. … Read more
New Zealanders like to claim moral superiority over their Australian neighbours when it comes to how asylum seekers are treated. But this belief is not based on reality, writes Tim Maurice of the Asylum Seekers Support Trust The local news media has welcomed Iranian asylum seeker Behrouz Boochani into New Zealand like a celebrity. There … Read more
Despite the world’s attention turning elsewhere, thousands of asylum seekers continue to die on perilous voyages across the Mediterranean. Alex Braae spoke to a New Zealander trying to save their lives. A human body doesn’t take long to disappear in the Mediterranean. Salt water breaks it down, fish nibble it, and before anyone notices, it … Read more
Practical steps to take right now if you’re appalled at the news coming out of the United States. This article was originally published in June 2018 and has been updated with current information. From the far side of an ocean, we in Aotearoa are still watching, horrified, as human rights abuses unfold in real time … Read more
Late last year, the Islamic Women’s Council of NZ’s Anjum Rahman received an email urging her to join the fight against the UN Global Compact on Migration. This was her response. Recent reporting has joined the dots between groups in New Zealand targeting the UN Global Compact on Migration and neo-Nazi groups offshore. This prompted … Read more
What was New Zealand’s role in the interception of the Andika, and is the $25 million allocated to preventing asylum-seeker vessels like it really a humanitarian act? In the 2019 “Wellbeing” budget, $25 million was allocated to maritime mass arrival prevention, described as an initiative aimed at preventing asylum seekers “departing for New Zealand”. But … Read more
For those attempting to seek asylum in New Zealand, the path is rarely straightforward. Tim Maurice of Asylum Seekers Support Trust gives us a glimpse of life as an asylum seeker. The room is alive with conversation. Before us, a meal is set out on the brown Formica table: a traditional Pakistani dish made from … Read more
As a toddler, Nida Fiazi escaped Afghanistan with her mother in a quest for survival. Instead they ended up in a detention camp in Nauru. Thalia Kehoe Rowden tells their story. Content note: This is a distressing story of seeking asylum and detention, and includes discussion of psychiatric illness, self-harm and suicide. When Waikato University … Read more
We were all horrified to see children ripped from their parents’ arms at the US-Mexico border last month. Sadly, this kind of thing happens in Australia, too, under their mandatory detention policies. Thalia Kehoe Rowden talked to a human rights lawyer about one family that has been separated for the last three years. Content note: … Read more
New Zealanders have been rightly horrified by Trump’s camps separating children from their parents. Are we similarly outraged by the illegal detention by the Australian government of babies and mothers? Thalia Kehoe Rowden spoke to some mums living in Nauru, waiting for years to be welcomed to a new country. Content note: this article contains … Read more
I was just a child when NZ took me and my family. Today, as hundreds of refugees cry out for help from Manus Island, we need to remember what we’re really about as a nation, writes Abbas Nazari. During her first foreign trip as prime minister, Jacinda Ardern on Sunday renewed New Zealand’s offer to … Read more
Mike Hosking has made another big mistake, this time on the UN’s refugee convention. Amnesty International New Zealand’s Grant Bayldon gives him a lesson in international law. In alarming misrepresentation of international law in today’s Mike’s Minute, Mike Hosking has applauded the Australian prime minister’s rejection of New Zealand’s offer to help resettle refugees from offshore … Read more
Over the weekend PM Jacinda Ardern reiterated the government’s offer to take 150 asylum seekers imprisoned on Manus Island. But we can’t stop there, writes Jessie Dennis. Now it’s time to swap compassionate words for life-saving action. The situation for refugees on Manus Island is a humanitarian crisis. The New Zealand government’s response to this … Read more
An exhibition and auction about to hit the streets of downtown Auckland aims to raise awareness – and funds – for asylum seekers in desperate need, writes Keith Locke. Close to 90 artists, each with a wooden picture frame. A theme: compassion for asylum seekers. And a venue: the shop windows of downtown Auckland, on … Read more
President Trump reportedly called his fiery conversation with Malcolm Turnbull “the worst call so far” and later tweeted he would “study this dumb deal” to allow into the United States 1250 refugees currently being held in Australian detention centres. To help out student of international diplomacy Donald Trump – and the rest of us – Tracey … Read more
Canberra’s offshore detention camps can be seen as an example of ‘necro-politics’, argues Janet McAllister. This week, The Spinoff published Amnesty International’s piece calling for New Zealand to protest Australia’s offshore detention centres, and then The Guardian published mountains more evidence of abuse and atrocities on Nauru. It costs Australia billions of dollars every year to violate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights so spectacularly. But simply … Read more
The Australian government has spent $6 million on a bizarre feature-length movie to warn away potential asylum seekers from the Middle East. Josh Drummond sat down with a Farsi-speaking interpreter to watch it. It’s dark in The Spinoff offices, late on a Sunday, and I can’t find the light switch. What little light there is … Read more
