Australia’s migration policy – “Djokovic is outside, now let the refugees go”

Imprisonment, harassment, uncertainty: what tennis star Novak Djokovic experienced when he entered Melbourne last week is the sad reality of countless migrants in Australia. Only they usually do not have the means to deploy an army of expensive lawyers. Or the pressure of the global public to discuss the case. “Many do what Djokovic had to endure for a few days for several years,” said former Australian footballer and human rights lawyer Craig Foster in an interview with 20 minutes.

“Djokovic is only partially a corona story,” clarifies Foster. The case of the tennis world number 1 is much more the story of the cruel Australian border policy. The 52-year-old would find it disgusting how the Djokovic family with their vaccination skepticism was at least indirectly against herd immunity. “Nevertheless, everyone should have the right to have an application for an exception handled lawfully and involuntarily,” said Foster.

The treatment of the Djokovic case Down Under always seemed arbitrary. First a visa was issued to the Serb, then withdrawn. And finally, after his lawyers had appealed, Djokovic was still allowed to enter. Foster: “In Australia the law is designed in such a way that the national government can overrule the states on migration issues at any time.” Those affected would again and again become political game balls, which are often forced into a state of limbo with no prospects.

The fact that Djokovic was detained, if only briefly, in one of the notorious hotels for people obliged to leave the country, makes him one of many examples who, despite everything, were still relatively lucky. Thousands of asylum seekers are stuck in so-called “offshore” internment camps, ie Australian refugee camps on surrounding islands such as Papua New Guinea or Nauru. “In a privatized system, people are locked up for years under the worst conditions until they collapse or even die,” says Foster.

A privatized system? The often indefinite detention pending deportation is organized by a highly profitable ecosystem of private companies. In the last few years, almost eight billion Swiss francs have been put into the machine. Foster: “The migration policy resulted in extreme profiteering with false incentives.” So the worse the companies looked after the inmates, the more money they would make. “In some of the camps and hotels there is a lack of the most basic medical care,” the former midfielder complains.

The fact that there is no public outcry in the immigrant nation despite the immense expenditure of taxpayers’ money is due to the systematically cultivated xenophobia. Foster explains: “Australian politicians have been using it for decades xenophobia and the associated border controls as a political lever. ” This year, migration policy, and especially the popular Djokovic case, is a welcome tool for the incumbent government led by Prime Minister Scott Morrison (53) to divert attention from its widely criticized handling of the corona crisis. National elections are due in April: “Morrison needed a quick win,” said Foster.

It remains to be seen whether the restrictive migration policy will bail out the counted government immediately before the elections. Especially since the Djokovic case has now given the whole world an insight into what Foster calls the “cynical system”. He himself hopes that global attention will increase the pressure on the controversial practice. In a manifesto published on Monday, Foster asked Djokovic that he should use the brief denial of his freedom to stand up for those who lack his profile and voice. The title of the three-page publication: «Djokovic is outside. Now let the refugees go. “

Foster has high hopes for tennis and sports celebrities in general to show resistance in the matter. The role of the WTA in the case of the Chinese Peng Shuai, the activism of the Japanese tennis star Naomi Osaka or Lewis Hamilton’s appearance with a rainbow helmet in Saudi Arabia gave him hope that the sports world would increasingly take on its public responsibility. The 29-time Australian international: “Perhaps 2022 will be the year in which the protest potential of the sport will finally be used.” In any case, the carpet for this was rolled out earlier than one might have assumed.