Visas denied to Marxism 2000 guests
By Sean Healy
SYDNEY — Three international guests scheduled to speak at the Marxism 2000 conference in Sydney in January were denied entry visas to Australia. Another guest was granted entry only after public pressure in Australia.
The denials are the latest in a long series of discriminatory visa decisions by the federal government, which even included refusing entry to 40 visitors to a planned international conference of the deaf.
AKM Fazlul Hoque from the Democratic Workers Party of Bangladesh, Alamgir Islam from the Bangladesh Agricultural and Farm Labourers Federation and Melih Bekdemir from the Party of Freedom and Solidarity of Turkey were all kept out of the country on the grounds that they could not prove to Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade that they would not overstay their visas. They are all from what is considered by the government to be "high risk countries" for illegal migration.
Rasti Delizo from the Socialist Party of Labour in the Philippines was initially denied a visa as well, but public pressure in Australia and media coverage of the visa denials forced a backdown by the department. Delizo was granted a visa two days after the conference began and was able to attend its final three days.
Questioned about the visa denials, immigration minister Philip Ruddock rejected claims of discrimination and, while denying that he had received any information personally about the cases, said that the likely reason for the decision was that the visitors "may not have been cooperative". He also accused the conference organisers of attention grabbing.
John Percy, the national secretary of the Democratic Socialist Party, which hosted the conference, denounced the visa denials and the minister's justifications, saying that there had clearly been political and racial discrimination. He pointed out that delegates from Canada and the United States had had no difficulty obtaining visas.
Conference organiser Max Lane said, "The rules discriminate against the poor — they are the only ones deemed at risk of overstaying". He pointed to the effectiveness of the immediate protests against the visa refusals, saying, "We showed that the government's hand can be forced, if the condemnation is great enough".
Delizo told conference participants upon his arrival that embassy officials in Manila had attributed their change of heart to media attention in Australia and "pressure from upstairs". "If it hadn't been for the protests here, they would not have allowed me to enter", Delizo said.