Excerpt from the article by BEN ELTHAM The Myuddin family is of Rohingya ethnicity, a persecuted group in Myanmar that is not entitled to citizenship. The UNHCR estimates there are around 1 million internally displaced Rohingya living in the country. Ferouz’s mother was pregnant when apprehended by the Australian government on the high seas and sent to jail in Nauru. When she was about to give birth, the Immigration Department flew her to Brisbane – without her husband or the rest of her family – where she gave birth to a healthy boy in the Mater Hospital. He was given the name Ferouz. The Australian government has never accepted that Ferouz Myuddin is an Australian citizen, born on Australian soil and entitled to all the rights afforded any other native son. Instead, the government has worked assiduously to deny Ferouz his liberties, and to send him back to jail in a foreign country. The government’s reasoning, almost unbelievably, is that he came here “by boat”. Yes, that’s right. The Australian government has argued, in a court of law, that a boy born in an Australian hospital is an “unauthorised maritime arrival”. TO READ MORE = https://newmatilda/2014/10/16/tortuous-legal-reasoning-denies-baby-ferouz-justice
Posted on: Sun, 19 Oct 2014 23:35:35 +0000