If so called "asylum seekers" reach a safe place, such as Indonesia ,haven't they lost the tag 'refugee' now that they have found 'refuge'?
Why are they still termed "asylum seekers" when they have willingly left that place of refuge and are no longer seeking genuine asylum?

I would bet money that Australia's foolishly generous welfare system be a contributing factor to the dtermination of this family to remain here at all costs. They were not content to remain in an Islamic country, instead they chose to risk entering Australia illegally - they would certainly have not gotten govt. handouts in Indonesia. I doubt they would have been given a house to live in, gratis, either.

Many children have been traumatised while in detention but Marilyn Shepherd never mentions the fact that the behaviour of other detainees is a very large contributing factor to the situation.

Wasnt the uncle in this family the one who threw himself on the barbed wire? Who would do this in front of children? The lip-sewing was done in full view of children also. And how about the reports of child sexual abuse carried out by detainees? Yet we are supposed to believe that these saintly asylum seekers would never lie in order to remain in this country and behave with dignity at all times.

And this family still wants to live in barbaric racist Australia. Amazing. I dont recall the 'national outcry' referred to by MS - perhaps the only outcry emanated from the fools who would open our borders to every 'asylum seeker' with a sad story.

It's like being stuck in a timewarp reading these comments.

If the parents do something we must punish the children.

If the children are distressed because of the behaviour of adults it is the children's faults.

Who asked a little baby if he wanted to be locked up, how about a 3 year old?

You don't seem to understand that the children were never asked anything at all. This is a story about DIMA manipulating the birth certificate of an Austrailan born baby to make him have a different nationality. Do you think that is an OK thing to?

It is also a story about Australia being aware for 4 years that they had mistaken the identity of an innocent woman but kept her locked up anyway and then deliberately sent her to the wrong country.

For the record - Pakistan never interviewed anyone in this family, never gave permission for them to be in Pakistan and never gave them papers to be in Pakistan. It was not this family who lied it was DIMA.

Marilyn, thank you for your article. I am not sure what to be disturbed by more - how people are treated within the detention framework or the alarming comments this article has evoked. What we believe is determined by many factors and media is a substantial contributor but there also seems to be a racial element or is it fear? The roots of prejudice have grown deep.

Maralyn

Did you ask the one year old child and the three years old child if they were happy with their parents' dishonesty? Why not? I think that counters your argument.

This is an old and dead story, and they still want us to cry tears of grief. There is an ongoing battle by these bleeding hearts to have us believe that this family is still a worthy cause. Australians are sympathetic to genuine assylum that enter legally. We have three plane loads of genuine seekers a week landing in Australia. Forget the criminals and concentrate in helping the sincere.

I attended the enacting of the story in Belvoir St theatre Sydney [only because my son-in-laws employer was a corporate sponsor]. It was a political drama done to gain public sympathy for the family. The 400 champaign sipping, diamond ear ring set stood around wringing their hands at the injustice of DIMIA. If they had decided to take up a collection it would have raised $$millions; and the Bakhtiyaris family could have returned to Pakistan as multi-millionaires. It was all a propagander stunt as was the families events in Womera.

To me it gave justice why we had to go into Afganistan to halt the stream of illegals like them entering Australia.