Well-Founded Fear, A (ATOM Study Guide)

The 1951 Convention on Refugees imposes a major obligation on countries not to deport or expel people to countries where they face persecution or risk serious human rights violation.

Admittedly it is difficult for government authorities to assess whether someone is a legitimate refugee. People do not always escape their countries with documentation that proves who they say they are or supports their claims of persecution. A Well-Founded Fear shows that we cannot afford to get these decisions wrong.

A Well Founded Fear is about the Edmund Rice Centre's research into the fate of deported asylum seekers. The centre's director Phil Glendenning believes that if Australia doesn't monitor what happens to the people they deport, they won't know if they are making the right decisions. The documentary explores what motivates Glendenning to do what no one else in the world does as he makes contact with the asylum seekers Australia didn't want, the people that immigration officials didn't believe had a 'well-founded fear' of persecution. His work takes him to dangerous war-torn countries.

The documentary examines the legacy of John Howard's policy as Glendenning crosses the globe in search of the asylum seekers Australia detained, rejected, and then deported. International law says people shouldn't be sent to unsafe locations but the stories of the deported asylum seekers that Australian immigration officials returned to Afghanistan, Syria and Iran suggest that this law was overlooked. Glendenning believes that the implications of these decisions need to be recorded and the Australian people need to hear about what has happened to those people who have failed to establish their status as refugees. Glendenning's intention is to bring back the stories and present them to the Government and the United Nations.

In Afghanistan, Glendenning meets a group of Hazara men who all spent time in detention on Nauru, the Pacific island Australia paid to detain asylum seekers offshore. When the Taliban was deposed from Government in late 2001, Australian authorities told them they were safe to return to their homeland. Glendenning learns of at least nine Afghan deportees who were killed when they were sent back. He also learns Australia has been deporting people who aren't Syrian to Syria on short term visas. When their visas run out they are forced into hiding. Equally disturbing is evidence that Australia has been knowingly using false passports to deport asylum seekers that fail to attain refugee status. At the end of his fact-finding mission it is evident that Glendenning is returning to Australia angry at the Australian Federal Government's decision to 'play around' with the truth of people's lives.

A Well-Founded Fear puts faces to names and numbers and in revealing the details of the deported asylum seekers lives encourages empathy and understanding. Like Glendenning, we are forced to question the policies, practices and attitudes that have put innocent people's lives in danger.