Imagine you live in a country with an oppressive government and even worse your enthnic group is being persecuted by that government, would you not want to leave even if it means selling all your possessions? This is a scenario faced by thousands of people every year who are classed as asylum seekers. Brindha, the 9 year old Tamil asylum seeker who on a crowded boat off the Indonesian coast, made a heartbreaking plea to Australian journalists to please save them, the prime minister delivered a cold reply: “I make absolutely no apology whatsoever for taking a hard line on illegal immigration to Australia.
The 253 asylum seekers – not illegal immigrants – on that boat had sacrificed everything they had to make a desperate bid for safety from the systematic slaughter being wrought on them by the Sri Lankan government. They are fleeing a situation where the Sri Lankan government is killing 1400 a week of the 300,000 detained in concentration camps.
