In Australia presently, there is a controversial situation where an Australian citizen, Cornelia Rau, was wrongfully incarcerated in one of our infamous Detention Centres (designed to hold illegal immigrants) for many months before her true identity became known.
Cornelia suffers from a mental illness, and when she was first apprehended by the authorities gave them a false name, and told them she was from Germany on a visitors visa. They duly contacted the Immigration Dept, who bunged her into Baxter Detention Centre until she could be deported.
Except Cornelia wasn’t from Germany…she had absconded from a psychiatric hospital in Sydney, and the hospital had issued alerts to the police and other bodies to inform them of her identity. She had police and psychiatric records not only from Australia, but involving Interpol as well apparently.
Except Cornelia ended up in the Baxter Detention Centre. And whlie there, she displayed overtly psychotic symptoms that should have lead the staff to inquiring as to her medical status. Unfortunately the Australian Government has tendered out the detention facilities to private contractors, who seem less inclined to cater for the various medical needs of their inmates. So, Cornelia went completely crazy, and the management didn’t give a shit.
Until it hit the papers a couple of weeks ago, when a journo-advocate published Cornelia’s case in the daily rag. And her family recognized her description. And they claimed her as their own, wondering why for all these months there had been no word as to her whereabouts.
Cornelia is certifiably crazy, there is no doubt. What is frightening is that crazy people can be locked up in detention in Australia, with little or no recourse to medical assistance for months or years on end. She is lucky in one sense, that she is actually an Aus citizen who now has complete access to the finest psychiatric care the world has to offer. Better late than never I guess. :rolleyes:
But what about those poor fuckers who are still regarded as illegals, who have been locked up for years pending their asylum applications? Many of them have GONE batshit crazy in the interim, even if they were healthy beforehand. They’ve committed no crime but to apply for asylum in Australia. We let our murderers out of prison earlier than we release refugees.
I didn’t vote for Howard. I think his policies suck big time. I just wish now that he could muster up the balls to say sorry to the Rau family for his governmental fuckup.
He hasn’t and he won’t.
He’s a tenant of the lowest eschelons of the algae layers that occupy the scum division of the bottom of the sea. I’d say “Fuck 'im”, but with such a gelatinous nature, it would be eminently unsatisfying for the fucker.
Grrrrrrrrrr