Refugees give Australia prejudice the boot

The Tigers' tour was not just about football

By Phil Mercer In Sydney

Australia's most unusual football team has just completed a tour of the country's east coast.

The boys got the most wonderful warm welcome

Camilla Cowley, Afghan Tigers manager

The players are all young refugees who fled persecution at home and survived the perilous journey from Indonesia.

All spent time in Australian immigration detention centres before being granted temporary permission to stay.

The team - the Afghan Tigers - is made up mostly of ethnic Hazaras from central Afghanistan, with others from Iran, Iraq, Sudan and Eritrea.

Their goal was to challenge the view held by many Australians of boat people as queue jumpers, criminals or simply economic migrants.

Their tour took in some of Australia's biggest cities - including the capital, Canberra, and Sydney - as well as more remote outback communities.

Challenging perceptions

The manager of the Afghan Tigers, Camilla Cowley, told BBC News Online that the tour has changed the way many people think about refugees.

"The boys got the most wonderful warm welcome," she said.

The Tigers played various local teams

"They were billeted with families, mostly on farms. There were tears on parting. It was brilliant.

"There have been plenty of people sat at home thinking: 'I don't like what we do to asylum seekers' but they haven't done anything. Now they're going to. This is galvanising them," she said.

Opinion polls suggest most people support the strict refugee policy pursued by the conservative government of John Howard.

Its cornerstone is the mandatory detention of asylum seekers, which is defended on health and security grounds and is designed as a deterrent to stop unwanted arrivals.

It wasn't enough to discourage 20-year-old Ataullah.

A striker in the Afghan Tigers team, he fled Afghanistan two years ago after being jailed and threatened by the Taleban.

He made it to Australia, with the help of people smugglers, via Pakistan and Indonesia.

Perilous journey

He said his journey to Australia's rugged north-western coastline was one he thought he would not survive.

The journey by boat from Indonesia is treacherous

"Ten days in the sea was horrible. We didn't know when we would get to Australia. Every time the sea was very rough, the boat was too small and everybody was screaming, crying and shouting."

The Australian Government has, in the past, estimated that one in every three boats carrying refugees from Indonesia sink on their way to Australia.

Boatpeople who do survive the treacherous crossing are often dumped on remote reefs by the smugglers.

Shah is another young ethnic Hazara who escaped from Afghanistan during the years of Taleban repression.

He was held in a remote immigration camp in Western Australia before being released.

Mental torture

He told the BBC his days in detention were a nightmare:

"We were mentally tortured because we didn't know what was going to happen to us. You feel humiliated, you feel down. You've got numbers to call you - they don't call you by your name."

Shah and Ataullah, like their team-mates, have been granted three-year protection visas. When these run out, they will apply for another and will either be allowed to stay on or be deported.

Ataullah still fears persecution at home and a return is something he dreads.

"I never want to go back to Afghanistan because if I go again I wouldn't find a peaceful life. My life would again be in danger, again be in hardship."

Australia's Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock will visit Afghanistan in the next few days to see if it is safe for the refugees to return.

Mr Ruddock will travel to Kabul, where he is expected to hold talks with Afghanistan's interim government on Australia's efforts to repatriate boatpeople and combat illegal immigration.