Stateless refugee 'victim' of Australian immigration policy

SYDNEY - When Peter Qasim turns 31 tomorrow it will be the seventh birthday the Kashmiri asylum-seeker has marked behind razor wire.

Trapped in a nightmarish no-man's land, he is the forgotten victim of Australia's refugee policy.

Mr Qasim has committed no crime and is no threat to society. But Australia will not release him from the prison where he spends his days gazing into space. India, meanwhile, refuses to acknowledge him as a citizen.

And so he whiles away year after year behind bars. "I am like a dead body," he said yesterday, in the monotone that is his sole vocal expression.

Australia incarcerates all asylum-seekers, be they genuine refugees or desperate families seeking a brighter future.

Adults are locked up alongside children. Mr Qasim, from the Indian-claimed region of Kashmir, has the dubious distinction of being the longest serving detainee: six years, eight months so far, and counting.

Mr Qasim's father, a separatist activist, was murdered by Indian security forces when he was a small child. He himself was arrested and tortured at 17, beaten with guns, batons and a belt, he says.

He spent several years in hiding, fled to Pakistan, then made his way to Australia via Singapore and Papua New Guinea.

He expected a compassionate reception when he arrived, aged 24. Instead, he has spent the precious years of his youth being shunted between five different detention centres, all grim prisons in remote parts of the country.

Now home is Baxter, a forbidding compound in the South Australian desert.

During that period Mr Qasim's application for refugee status was rejected and he exhausted every avenue of appeal.

In 2003 he gave up and offered to be repatriated. But India spurned him, claiming he had failed to verify his identity.

Fifty other countries have declined to take him. He is, officially, stateless.

Now the black clouds of depression have descended. He is listless, withdrawn, sleeps late, communicates little.

Speaking by telephone from Baxter, he said: "I have forgotten about hope. I have forgotten about the world outside. I am like a robot."

Recently a ray of hope appeared on the horizon, but it offered a false promise. The government, in a rare softening of its policy, announced that unsuccessful asylum-seekers would be released into the community until they could return home.

But it appears that Mr Qasim will not be a beneficiary.

A spokesman for the Immigration Minister, Amanda Vanstone, said Mr Qasim was not eligible because he was "not cooperating with efforts to establish his identity".

Officials had been unable to substantiate information provided about his background, he said.

India, meanwhile, says Mr Qasim has not produced documents or witnesses to back his claim to be from the village of Gopalla, in the Rajouri district of Kashmir.

Unmoved by the fact that he has passed three language tests, it is refusing to give him a passport.

MC Singhania, first secretary at the Indian High Commission in Canberra, said: "Unless there is someone who can vouch for him, we can't accept him as an Indian national."

Mr Qasim's personal circumstances mean there is no paper trail linking him with India. Born in a poor rural area, he has no birth certificate. He did not attend a formal school.

After being arrested, he went underground. He only had casual work and he has no family in India.

Australian officials visited his village and found no one who knew him. But refugee activists say the friends who helped him when he was in hiding would be unlikely to acknowledge his existence.

"I realise I made a mistake in coming to Australia, but what can I do?" he said.

- INDEPENDENT