The mentally disturbed Australian woman deported to the Philippines four years ago and found this week in an Olongapo hospice is welcome to return, Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone said Thursday.
Vivian Solon, 42, was taken to Brisbane airport in a wheelchair and put on a plane in 2001 -- three days after a traffic accident from which she had not fully recovered.
Authorities realized their blunder two years ago, but kept it from her family in Australia and the Philippines until two weeks ago.
"If she wants to come back, of course, we will facilitate her coming back," Vanstone said. "We will facilitate assistance for her when she arrives so that she's got support and can settle in and, of course, she'll be entitled to Australian benefits."
Authorities stand accused of doing little to redress an injustice that stemmed from their believing she was an illegal immigrant because of her poor English and Asian appearance. Solon arrived in Australia in 1984.
Cecile Solon said her sister had been treated very badly by Australian authorities. But an apology is not forthcoming. Prime Minister John Howard said only that the "circumstances of this case on the available information appear very sad," adding "it will be a matter of sorrow and regret that this lady, who appears to be an Australian citizen, has been deported."
The chain of events that led to her deportation began six months earlier when she failed to pick up her son from day-care in Brisbane following an accident. She had split from her husband and reverted to her maiden name. Immigration officials failed to check that she was an Australian citizen and, just hours after being released from hospital, she was deported. Solon was taken in by Catholic nuns and has spent the last two years living in a home for the sick and dying in Olongapo, north of Manila. She has a brother in Australia, where her son, now 9, is in foster care.
The case has been referred to a government team set up last month to inquire into a similar case of Australian resident Cornelia Rau who was mistaken for an illegal immigrant and locked up for 10 months, first in a prison and then in an immigration detention center.
Rau, who had been diagnosed a schizophrenic, was believed when she said she was a tourist despite her family notifying authorities that she was a missing person. Solon's family have drawn parallels with the Rau case, saying that racism explains why German-born Rau was held in the country for 11 months while Philippines-born Solon was deported after just three days.
"I am furious," Cecile Solon said. "I just feel there was some kind of racial discrimination. There are questions to be answered."
Auschwitz survivor Eva Schloss, the stepsister of teenage diarist Anne Frank and a tireless educator about the horrors of the Holocaust, has died. She was 96. The Anne Frank Trust UK, of which Schloss was honorary president, said she died on Saturday in London, where she lived. Britain’s King Charles III said he was “privileged and proud” to have known Schloss, who cofounded the charitable trust to help young people challenge prejudice. “The horrors that she endured as a young woman are impossible to comprehend and yet she devoted the rest of her life to overcoming hatred and prejudice, promoting kindness, courage, understanding
‘DISRESPECTFUL’: Katie Miller, the wife of Trump’s most influential adviser, drew ire by posting an image of Greenland in the colors of the US flag, captioning it ‘SOON’ US President Donald Trump on Sunday doubled down on his claim that Greenland should become part of the US, despite calls by the Danish prime minister to stop “threatening” the territory. Washington’s military intervention in Venezuela has reignited fears for Greenland, which Trump has repeatedly said he wants to annex, given its strategic location in the arctic. While aboard Air Force One en route to Washington, Trump reiterated the goal. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it,” he said in response to a reporter’s question. “We’ll worry about Greenland in
PERILOUS JOURNEY: Over just a matter of days last month, about 1,600 Afghans who were at risk of perishing due to the cold weather were rescued in the mountains Habibullah set off from his home in western Afghanistan determined to find work in Iran, only for the 15-year-old to freeze to death while walking across the mountainous frontier. “He was forced to go, to bring food for the family,” his mother, Mah Jan, said at her mud home in Ghunjan village. “We have no food to eat, we have no clothes to wear. The house in which I live has no electricity, no water. I have no proper window, nothing to burn for heating,” she added, clutching a photograph of her son. Habibullah was one of at least 18 migrants who died
Russia early yesterday bombarded Ukraine, killing two people in the Kyiv region, authorities said on the eve of a diplomatic summit in France. A nationwide siren was issued just after midnight, while Ukraine’s military said air defenses were operating in several places. In the capital, a private medical facility caught fire as a result of the Russian strikes, killing one person and wounding three others, the State Emergency Service of Kyiv said. It released images of rescuers removing people on stretchers from a gutted building. Another pre-dawn attack on the neighboring city of Fastiv killed one man in his 70s, Kyiv Governor Mykola
RSS