Media Release December 28
\nRefugee activists in Indonesia are extremely concerned at the fate of one of the Tamil Merak asylum seekers, \u201cSammy\u201d, who was arrested at the Merak hospital on Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cSammy\u201d, who had permission to be at the hospital, had been assisting a Tamil patient from the boat at Merak. He had also been with Jacob, the asylum seeker who died on 23 December after authorities failed to provide timely medical assistance.<\/p>\n
While there has been no official statement as to the whereabouts of \u201cSammy\u201d, unofficial sources believe he is being held at Merak and is expected to be transferred to immigration detention in Jakarta, where twelve other Tamils and five Afghans are confined to two small cells.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt seems that Sammy\u2019s disappearance is related to Indonesian authorities attempts to prevent the asylum seekers from obtaining Australian humanitarian visa applications,\u201d said Ian Rintoul, spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition, who is currently in Jakarta. \u201cHumanitarian visa application forms obtained by some Merak asylum seekers at the hospital had been confiscated by Indonesian authorities when they returned to the boat.\u00a0 The twelve Tamils in immigration detention in Jakarta were also denied permission to complete the application forms last week.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe discussed this issue with the Indonesian human rights commissioner on Saturday, but Sammy\u2019s arrest raises the concerns to a new level. The Indonesian authorities should return Sammy to the ship. We are calling on the Australian embassy to facilitate the distribution of the forms and to ensure that no asylum seekers are victimised for obtaining or completing the forms.<\/p>\n
\u201cScores of applications have been completed electronically and will be sent to the Australian embassy,\u201d said Ian Rintoul.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are also concerned that Sammy\u2019s \u2018disappearance\u2019 may also be related to the IOM internal report about Jacob\u2019s death. IOM has been less than honest in its pubic statements about the medical attention Jacob received,\u201d added Rintoul.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, a Jesuit priest was again denied access to the asylum seekers at Merak. Father Adianus Suyadi was tuned away from Merak after approaching IOM, navy and immigration authorities for permission to speak to Christians on the boat.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are seeking urgent legal assistance to determine what has happened to Sammy,\u201d said Ian Rintoul, \u201cand we will be raising the question of the visa application forms with the Australian embassy at the protest in Jakarta on Monday.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Merak asylum seekers are concerned at the growing intimidation at the boat. \u201cAlex\u201d, the spokesperson for the Merak boat was roughed up by Indonesian police in an incident after Jacob\u2019s death. Dozens of other asylum seekers intervened to prevent the police continuing the assault. A few days earlier a woman had also been assaulted by navy personnel.<\/p>\n
A protest calling for an end to the Indonesian solution will be held at the Australian embassy Jakarta, 11am, 28 December.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Media Release December 28<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":311091,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-37","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-press-releases"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/311091"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}