Racism kills — Rudd and Abbott’s anti-refugee hysteria http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/44100

Australia’s interference in Indonesia has caused refugees to take even riskier journeys to bypass the country. In November, four boats carrying 100 people tried the same journey directly from Sri Lanka to Australia's south-west coast. The Sri Lankan navy caught and arrested all of them.

The gruesome deaths of the five men are a direct result of Australia’s racist anti-refugee policy. The law of the sea requires people in such conditions to be rescued straight away. But refugees have become the dehumanised victims of fearmongering in Australian electoral politics.