How dare you, Australian government!!!!

This is the front page report of a local daily today:-

You can read the entire article here

The cheek of the Australian government, having the nerve to ask Virginia Leong to pay half a million Aussie dollars!!! They should be paying Virginia and Naomi, Virginia's daughter, compensation and damages caused to an innocent young baby. In fact, the Australian government shud be hauled to the International Human Rights Court and be charged for such a blatant abuse of basic human rights.

I am talking of the treatment they meted out to a newborn baby in the detention centre! Long before the aforementioned local daily started sensationalising this story, the Independant (UK) oredi exposed the shameless Aussie govt and reported the following:-

Australia in dock over detention of girl, 3

By Kathy Marks
06 May 2005

Australia's treatment of asylum-seekers is under scrutiny again after revelations about a three-year-old girl who suffered serious mental health problems after spending her life in mandatory detention.

Professional advice that Naomi Leong, a Malaysian child, should be allowed out to visit a playgroup for two hours once a week has gone unheeded.

Of the 74 children held in immigration detention centres around the country, she has been incarcerated the longest.

Her case was uncovered by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), which reported that Naomi - once an alert and extroverted little girl - was now profoundly disturbed.

"She's in a very anxious and distressed state," Dr Michael Dudley, a child psychiatrist who visited her in Sydney's Villawood detention centre, told the ABC.

"She's banging her head against the wall, she's gazing into the distance at times, she's mute, unresponsive, listless."

Dr Dudley wrote to immigration authorities two months ago recommending that Naomi, who turned three yesterday, be allowed to visit the playgroup to mixwith children of her own age. But permission was not granted.

Naomi's mother, Virginia Leong, was two months' pregnant when she was arrested trying to leave Australia without correct papers. The girl was born at Villawood and has never experienced life outside those walls.

Dr Dudley said she suffers from severe separation anxiety. "She wants to lie in her mum's arms and be nursed all the time," he said. "She watches her mum like a hawk."

Refugee campaigners say she has bruises from banging her head against the wall.

The psychiatrist said Naomi needed to be in a place where she had a chance to develop normally. "She's been brought up in prison, in a highly abnormal environment with highly distressed people. It's not an environment conducive to child development."

Further, another psychiatrist Dr Louise Newman, was quoted in another local daily today to say that “She (Naomi)’s had considerable emotional distress and certainly has developed mental problems”.

You can read the full article here.

Surely the Aussie govt must be made answerable for these atrocities! But it seems that the Australian govt is gonna get off scott free!

And insted of slinking away quietly, they turn around and slap a half a million dollars bill on Virginia and Naomi!

My heart goes out to the sweet little girl who for the first time in her life - literally - experienced freedom! But at wat cost?

Naomi enjoying the day out wif mom. Let's pray for her that she may overcome the psychological problems and grow up healthy, physically, emotionally, spiritually.