Notes from parallel universes
By Jonathan Green
Updated 7 hours 41 minutes ago
Mourners grieve at a funeral for one of the Christmas Island boat tragedy victims at Rookwood Cemetery in Sydney. (ABC TV)
The observable facts:
Asylum seekers were flown to Sydney for today's funerals of people killed in the shipwreck.
Family members of 12 of the victims live in Sydney and have requested they be buried there. Some relatives who are still in detention on Christmas Island have been flown to Sydney to attend the services. Among the Christmas Island detainees being flown to Sydney is Madian El Ibrahimy, who has been detained on Christmas Island since arriving in Australia in April last year.
Mr El Ibrahimy's eight-month-old daughter Zahra, wife Zman, and five-year-old son Nzar all died in the shipwreck.
From there it's a matter of perspective.
According to opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison:
"The Government had the option of having these services on Christmas Island.
"If relatives of those who were involved wanted to go to Christmas Island, like any other Australian who wanted to attend a funeral service in another part of the country, they would have made their own arrangements to be there.
"This is a Government whose failed border protection policies have increased the cost of asylum seeker management by more than seven-fold in just the last three years.
"They need to understand the value of taxpayers' dollars in this area.
"Are you suggesting, you know, that other Australians don't find financial cost pressures when it comes to getting to these types of events that they dearly want to go to?"
Filmmaker Colman Ridge has been in close contact with the El Ibrahimy family in the lead up to Zahra's burial this morning.
"Substantial efforts have been made to bury Zahra without the consent of her family and with instruction from the Department of Immigration to their subcontractors to make it 'quick, quiet and away from the media'."
Here are the details as I and the family understand them:
1. Zahra El Ibrahimy's body has been delivered to a funeral directors in Lidcombe, Sydney. This is not the family's funeral director.
2. Zahra has been in the Christmas Island morgue for two months with the family requesting permission from DIAC to bury her on a daily basis.
3. Madian El Ibrahimy the father is en route from Christmas Island to Sydney. On arrival he is not permitted to meet his permanent resident brother in Sydney despite meetings previously being approved in Christmas Island.
4. Madian will be held in secret location to be ushered by security to funeral, forbidden to have contact with permanent resident family at funeral and returned to Christmas Island detention centre immediately upon completion of ceremony.
5. Madian is on suicide watch in detention after losing his wife, son and daughter in the wreck.
6. Madian is not permitted to speak at funeral, not even to family. This cannot be a national security measure as Madian has been permitted to talk on mobile from Christmas Island but is ordered mute at funeral.
7. The casket is to be sealed, the family cannot view the body, the father cannot interact with the body or the family.
8. A security planned revealed shows a combination of NSW and Federal Police, plus Circo Security from detention centre may out number the family and grieving but will be a minimum of one to one in plain clothes.
9. DIAC is not communicating with the permanent resident brother of Madian, Oday who has lived in Sydney since 2003. This is different to the treatment of other families and he feels is due to him speaking up about the case.
10. DIAC has instructed a "quick and quiet" funeral away from media this morning.
And this is how a Department of Immigration spokesman saw it:
"The families of the victims are being treated in a compassionate and sensitive manner and appropriate funeral and mourning arrangements have been made.
"The department has consulted extensively with family members, funeral directors and religious representatives at every step during the processes. The funerals are a private event organised for the relatives of the deceased and it would be totally inappropriate, given the tragic circumstances, for the funerals to become a media spectacle and add to the trauma already being suffered.
"The claim that family members in Sydney will not be allowed to meet with those coming to Sydney for the funerals is not accurate, they will have an opportunity to meet and speak with family members after the services.
"Detainees brought to Sydney will be escorted by the appropriate level of security as they are still in detention; the Australian community expects an appropriate level of supervision."
To return briefly to the observable facts:
ABC news: "The funerals of three asylum seekers, including two babies, who died in the Christmas Island boat tragedy have taken place in Sydney.
"A total of eight people will be buried today, with three Muslim services this morning and five Christian services this afternoon.
"An eight-year-old Iranian boy watched as his father Fahan was buried at Rookwood cemetery in Sydney's west this morning.
"The boy is an unaccompanied minor from Christmas Island who lost both his parents in the boat tragedy. An aunt who lives in Sydney watched, wailing, by the graveside.
"Two babies - eight-month-old girl Zahra and three-month-old boy Sam - were also laid to rest."
Which, beyond the to and fro of the ugliest of politics, just sounds desperately sad.
Jonathan Green is the editor of The Drum.
