[I wouldn't worry if I were him - it isn't possible. In order to be morally intimidated a govt has to have morals. - T]
Detainees trying to morally intimidate govt, PM MELBOURNE, Jan 25 AAP|Published: Friday January 25, 1:49 PM Hunger strikers at the Woomera Detention Centre were trying to morally intimidate the Australian government, Prime Minister John Howard said today. About 200 detainees are hunger-striking and another 60 protesters have sewn their lips together to draw attention to government delays in processing their visa applications. " ... it has to be said again that people are engaging in self harm, it is being done to morally intimidate the Australian people and the Australian government into changing a policy," Mr Howard told Melbourne radio 3AW. "I mean that is the objective, this is moral intimidation." He said authorities would try to prevent the hunger strikers starving themselves to death. "I don't want to make dramatic statements about what we're going to do but self evidently we will do everything we possibly can to stop people effectively taking their own lives." However he said scrapping the mandatory detention policy was not an option. "We would wish that we didn't have this problem to grapple with but in the absence of there being both a humane and also policy effective alternative we will pursue and continue to pursue the policy of mandatory detention." Mr Howard said there was evidence children had been coerced into taking part in the protests. [What kind of evidence? Why doesn't he say what kind of evidence he has? Or is it the same kind of 'evidence' he had when he made allegations of children being thrown overboard? - T] Five unaccompanied children were removed from the centre in outback South Australia after they were considered most at risk from ongoing protest action. "There is evidence and this is why the child welfare people acted as they did in South Australia, there is evidence that children have been, as it were, coerced or involved or used in situations," he said. "Just how many I can't tell you." " ... children in the proper, positive care of their parents don't sew their lips together, do they?" Mr Howard said. [So these are unfit parents, aren't they? Not like us. - Trudy] "I think all Australians, as an exercise in common sense, understand that and that is presumably what motivated the South Australian child welfare authorities to do what they did." -- --------------------------------------------------------- "A terrorist is somebody who is prepared to kill innocent people to further a particular political objective." -Senator Robert Hill --------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------------------------- RecOzNet2 has a page @ http://www.green.net.au/recoznet2 and is archived at http://www.mail-archive.com/recoznet2%40paradigm4.com.au/ until 11 March, 2001 and Recoznettwo is archived at http://www.mail-archive.com/recoznettwo%40green.net.au/ from that date. This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use."
