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Search Results: JRS

  • AUSTRALIA

    Former detainee seeks compensation for unlawful detention

    • Maeve Elrington
    • 02 August 2022
    3 Comments

    Former detainee, Kurdish-Iranian refugee Mostafa ‘Moz’ Azimitabar, seeks compensation from the Federal Government for what he alleges was unlawful detention. Detained offshore in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and in Australia for almost eight years, Moz is seeking compensation in the Federal Court of Australia for the physical and emotional toll of his detention, particularly from the final 14 months of detention in two Melbourne based hotels.

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  • RELIGION

    The makings of a saint

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 20 January 2022
    4 Comments

    On the fifteenth anniversary of Rutilio Grande’s death, I went to a memorial celebration in Aguilares. This crossroads town was the centre of the Jesuit local mission of which Grande had been part. I had already been struck by the affection with which everyone spoke of Rutilio Grande. In a society where any ministry to people who were poor exposed one to constant danger, it was natural to become hardened in order to survive. Rutilio Grande, however, was remembered and treasured for his vulnerability.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    What’s next for Afghanistan?

    • Hava Rezaie, Hayat Akbari, Zaki Haidari
    • 28 September 2021
    5 Comments

    It has now been over a month since the Taliban seized Kabul. As attention inevitably shifts elsewhere, the painful question arises: What's next? Is this another 'back to the future' moment? The signs are grim. Over the last two weeks, the Taliban have issued a number of edicts which demonstrate that their attitudes to women have not changed.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Campaining for Afghan women's rights

    • Hava Rezaie
    • 22 June 2021
    7 Comments

    I was born Hazara in Afghanistan. It is a place where my people suffer constant persecution and discrimination, and additionally, where women are considered second-class citizens. When I was two years old, my parents fled Afghanistan. We first arrived in Iraq and were subsequently given refugee status in Iran. Despite the challenges of growing up a foreigner in Iran, I completed my teaching degree, and also qualified to be a lawyer.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Locked in and locked out

    • Zaki Haidari
    • 23 March 2021
    9 Comments

    I am a refugee from Afghanistan, and I belong a minority ethnic group, the Hazaras. We have been persecuted for a long time because of our ethnicity, religion and values. In 2012, I was forced to leave Afghanistan. I was 17. Back home, my father was a medical doctor. The Taliban accused him of working with international armed forces in the country at the time. One day the Taliban took him away, and nobody has seen him since.  

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Jesuit Refugee Service: '40 years of accompaniment'

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 26 November 2020
    7 Comments

    Stories of volunteers who went to help in foreign crises used to focus on the impact on the people helped. Today they explore how both parties are changed through the experience. That was also true in Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) whose 40th anniversary occurred last week.

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  • FAITH DOING JUSTICE

    COVID-19 doesn't discriminate, nor should we

    • Carolina Gottardo
    • 06 April 2020
    6 Comments

    The ability to work from home or social distance is a class issue. How do you practice social distancing in the slums of Lagos, the favelas of Rio or the shanty towns of Bogota, the city where I was born? Here in Australia, it’s not much different for refugees, people seeking asylum and migrants in vulnerable situations.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    A visit among the men of Manus

    • Carolina Gottardo
    • 18 November 2019
    7 Comments

    I recently visited Port Moresby as part of a delegation of Catholic leaders. I have worked with refugees and migrants for more than 20 years in different countries. I have been part of many serious and confronting human rights struggles. Nonetheless, I was not expecting what I saw and heard in PNG, and it deeply touched me.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Timor-Leste's bloody sunrise

    • Mark Raper
    • 23 August 2019
    4 Comments

    One man rushed at Dewanto and cut him with a machete. The sister claims that the slaughter then began. Blood flowed out under the doors of the church like a river. Was this what she saw then or what she could not stop seeing in her nightmares? Or both? Over 100 died in Suai that day.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Separating refugee policy from politics

    • Carolina Gottardo and Nishadh Rego
    • 06 June 2019
    17 Comments

    The recent federal election showed us that refugees and people seeking asylum do not need to be instrumentalised for votes. Perhaps refugee policymaking could be separated from politics. Perhaps it could be evidence-based and humane. Alas, the prevailing frames and politics of border protection quickly came to the fore post-election.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Indonesian perspective on Medevac

    • Carolina Gottardo, Nishadh Rego, Lars Stenger
    • 21 February 2019
    8 Comments

    On 7 February in Manado, Sulawesi, Sajjad, a 24 year old man who had just finished a degree in IT, doused himself with petrol and set himself on fire. He died six days later. On the day of his death, Australians woke to the government's claim the passage of the Medevac Bill would restart boats from Indonesia and weaken Australia's borders.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Australia misses GCM boat, but it's not too late

    • Carolina Gottardo
    • 19 December 2018
    4 Comments

    To abandon the GCM is a loss for all migrant women, men and children affected by human mobility, and creates a strong signal that Australia no longer deems multilateralism as an appropriate approach to global challenges.

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