العربي الديمقراطي The Latest From The Arab World
مقالات مشابهة
The Australian government has drawn flak from various quarters over its current media campaign against undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers, seemingly sending the message that they are not welcome.
The government hopes that the rhetoric will discourage immigrants from settling in the country. The latest government-approved poster in the hard hitting campaign, already printed in 17 languages, says “No way. You will not make Australia home”.
The campaign is part of the government’s Operation Sovereign Borders program. With the blunt language and the menacing imagery, a tiny boat being tossed about in the threatening sea, the poster didn’t take long to spread across the internet; some have even called it the anti-tourist campaign of the century.
Nonprofit Refugee Action Coalition of Sydney is indignant over the campaign, and claims that “almost all the deaths at sea have been caused by the appalling response of Australia’s search and rescue services, who have been told to prioritize stopping boats, not saving lives”.
According to Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, spokeswoman for Green immigration, “This document is in incredibly poor taste. The fact that it came from the Australian government is a disappointing indictment on our once generous nation which helped to draft the Refugee Convention”.
Back in 1928, in a markedly contrasting tone, Australia was selling itself as a land of opportunity to people living in northern Europe and the UK. After World War II, it even offered British immigrants subsidized boat trips for ten pounds to the country.
Critics say that it is ironic that the country founded by European immigrants, at the expense of indigenous people, has the nerve to shut itself off to the world. Many suggest that threatening asylum seekers and immigrants fleeing from violence and oppression is needlessly cruel.
Related Video: