CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A refugee advocate attacked Australian authorities on Saturday for rejecting the application of a Palestinian asylum seeker who returned to the Gaza Strip and was killed as part of a clan rivalry.
Akram al-Masri, who gained a high profile in Australia by challenging a government policy of keeping asylum seekers in prison-like detention camps, was shot Friday in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis, police said.
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Jamal Daoud, a spokesman for the Sydney-based refugee advocacy group Social Justice Network, said the former Australian government of Prime Minister John Howard had blood on its hands for rejecting al-Masri's application.
"The previous Australian government is responsible for another terrible crime by forcing refugees to be sent back to Gaza when they knew the situation there," Daoud said.
The government had planned to keep al-Masri in detention indefinitely but human rights lawyers took up his case and a federal judge ordered in 2002 that he be released while awaiting deportation. The government lost its subsequent appeal in 2003 but al-Masri had returned to Gaza by then.
In February, refugee advocate Marilyn Shepherd helped al-Masri's Australia-based uncle make a renewed application for asylum for his nephew "because his life was in danger," according to comments she made in Saturday's The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper.
She said the Immigration Department had not yet replied to the application.
The department issued a statement Saturday saying it could not be held responsible for the future of everyone deported from Australia.
Initial support in Australia for the mandatory detention program imposed by Howard's government dwindled over the years as asylum seekers languished in prison camp-like facilities.
The new government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced last Tuesday that most of the tough rules on locking up asylum seekers would be scrapped.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jIZUWxUlthTAN52E9VW7Ai_MRoewD92A6S8O0