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At least 30 people including Iranians, Kurds and Iraqis are died after a wooden boat carrying up to 100 asylum seekers reportedly crashed into cliffs on Christmas Island. 42 people survived the crash. The crash occurred about 6am local time on 15/12/2010.
Arrangements would be made to hold memorial services on December 19 or 20 to "allow people to grieve" for at least 30 victims.
See the following links for details:
From the West Australian (http://www.thewest.com.au/)
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/wa/8514999
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/galleries/a/-/article/8515704/image/1/asylum-disaster/
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/national/8526415/boat-tragedy-death-toll-climbs-to-30/
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/newshome/8525736/rescuer-tells-of-boat-wreck-horror/
From Iranians of Western Australia (http://www.iranian.co.nr/)
http://iwacnb.blogspot.com/2010/12/asylum-seekers-killed-in-boat-crash.html
Following this disaster I had many calls from Australian Newspapers mostly asking why Iranians are migrating and what cause them to put their lives in danger to flee from Iran.
My explanation to this matter is covered in my writing below and I’m publishing this here myself as I understand that Australian Newspapers are trying to relate this issue to the problems in Iran only and they do not want people to see the whole picture.
Questions:
1. Why Iranians are migrating?
2. Why some immigrants are choosing to migrate as asylum seeker and coming by boat?
WHY IRANIANS ARE MIGRATING?
Studying Iranian society we can recognise three waves of immigration during the past 60 years or so, from Iran to other countries.
Wave One
The first significant wave was around year 1950 until the 1979 revolution, was triggered by Iran’s slow economic recovery and resumption of oil production after World War II. Revenue from oil exports permitted a relatively sudden change in Iranian society from traditionalism to modernization, motivating middle- and upper-class families to send their children abroad for higher education as a means of ensuring socioeconomic security and political access upon return. At the time of the revolution there were more than 100,000 Iranians studying abroad, mostly in US and Europe. After the revolution, not only did many of these students opt to remain in the West, but many of their relatives joined them.
Also included in this first period were families closely associated with the monarchy as members of the government, military personnel, or bankers. These royalist sympathizers fled during the early stages of the revolution, often with significant liquidated assets in hand.
Finally, another population that fled in this phase were members of religious minorities anticipating persecution.
Wave Two
The second wave of immigration took place after the revolution. Socialist and liberal elements were the first to leave, followed by other people who didn’t like to live under the control of a religious regime. This wave included large numbers of professionals, entrepreneurs, and academics. From year 1980 to 1982 universities in Iran were closed for so called Cultural Revolution. During this time near 7000 professors teaching in Iran's higher education institutions were migrated to other countries.
Wave Three
This wave (from 1995 to present) consists of two very distinct populations, highly skilled individuals (majority) and working-class labour migrants.
Note: In fact the brain drain is one element that all of Iran's migratory waves have in common and Iran ranks highest in brain drain among 91 developing and developed countries, with an estimated 150,000 to 180,000 educated people exiting per year.
The majority of those migrating are scientific scholars and university graduates. Among the factors contributing to the brain drain are economic well-being and better educational prospects abroad. The inability of the home country to respond to its citizens' needs, coupled with high unemployment rates and a general lack of intellectual and social security, all contribute to the brain drain. The intense demand for university seats in Iran also plays a key role. Of the approximately 1.5 million people who take exams annually, only an estimated 11 percent are accepted into a university. Even after acquiring an undergraduate degree, young people find there are few jobs available. Additionally, the recent political tensions in Iran also now could be seen as a new factor contributing to the immigration from Iran.
To summaries the reasons for recent wave of Immigration of Iranians are:
1. Iran's economic crisis.
2. Deteriorating human rights record
3. Diminishing opportunities
4. Enduring tension between reformist and conservative factions.
WHY ASYLUM SEEKING?
With no doubt the situation in Iran is not good (politically and economically) and the Iranian government is known for its gross human rights abuses. Referring to the four reasons given in the first part of this article, now a day, many of educated middle-class people in Iran especially young generation wish to migrate to west seeking a better life.
However, we should note that majority of the people who are about to migrate or already migrated from Iran to another country, see their migration as temporarily. They lock their homes; pack a suitcase and going to live abroad. Most of these people even invest in Iran from their income abroad and save for the time they expected to return to their homeland. Around 95% of Iranian migrants living abroad are returning home once a year if they can. Around %90 of Iranian asylum seekers are getting Iranian Passport again and going back to Iran time to time, after 2-3 years, when they have settled in their new country.
For this reason all Iranian migrants are usually trying to use safe and legal methods for their migration.
However, immigration to Australia as an asylum seeker seems to be much easier and more successful than the legal migration (ie. Skilled Migration), which needs lots of efforts, time and money. The earlier seems to require only one-off payment to a people smuggler.
I know more than 20 couples/families that had their skilled migration application submitted 2-3 years ago and after such a long time it still not completely processed or failed for just having few points below the pass mark, or for some silly reasons. An example of the silly reason was a case that the applicant’s application has been rejected because the company he was working for was a subsidiary of a parent company that was belong to the Guardian Army Organisation. The guy was working there as engineer without knowing who actually owns the company.
The people who decide to come to Australia as asylum seeker are usually see this as very easy way to achieve, especially because they can see plenty of examples among their friends who have done this and were more successful than others who applied for skilled migration.
While skilled migrants (and other legal migrants - if their application is successful) are responsible for their own expenses and are not covered for few years, the Australian government provide asylum seekers with free place to live, free money to spend, medical health and welfare services and more from the time they arrive, and they remain under support from Australian authorities for long time. Additionally the Australian immigration policies for asylum seekers more softened recently (announced in October 2010) allowing asylum seeker families with children to be held in the community rather than in the camp.
That's why at least 5,000 asylum seekers from Iraq, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka have made their way to Australia this year, often on leaky boats from Indonesia.
To conclude I accuse not only the bad situation in Iran but also the Australian migration policies (encouraging illegal immigrants) for the death of those people who died in the recent boat crash, and I hope that Australian government change its policies and pay more attention to the legal migrants than the illegal.
Morteza Tabatabaee
Iran Cultural House of WA
Friday, 17th December 2010
Web: http://www.iraanian.co.nr/
