Refugees in Australia are on a hunger-strike to protest their indefinite detention there. To make the point more forcefully, they've sewed their lips shut.
Some background reading on the Australian immigration department's site tells the history: Boat-people — refugees washing up on the shores of Australia — got a very good break in the 70s, when they were mostly Vietnamese. But as time went by, public pressure convinced the Australian government to more thoroughly investigate claims before granting refugee status to new arrivals. Seems like a good enough idea — there was speculation that Khmer Rouge war criminals and other mass-murderers were arriving as poor displaced people — but over the years the Australian refugee system has clotted up, so that new arrivals — including women and children — are indefinitely detained in remote walled quaratines that are little more than jails.
Any Australians in the readership want to comment?LinkDiscuss (Thanks, Nat!)
