Video Games & Asylum Seekers: "Escape from Woomera"

What happens when the Australian Government restricts media access to the shameful practice of mandatory detention of Asylum seekers (especially of children) in hell-hole conditions away in barren desert?

Well, you could make a video game about it, and recieve government funding for doing so!
Earthdreamer, where are you? Did you attend the Baxter action? Australia used to have a humane refugee policy (in fact that's how i got here in the first place!) but now I live in a country where even the Immigration Minister's (Phillip Ruddock) own daughter says that he lacks compassion.
Nothing gets you passionate like human rights and computer games.
um 'cept for firetwirling of course....

cool. very very cool. although i am a computer game obsessive whose works in immigration, so i suppose i'd be more interested than most

In the uk the immigration service gets criticised for leniency or unbalanced treatment of refugees more than how harshly it treats them. But the detention centres here are still morally troubling... *deleted rant - you know how it is, someone mentions a specialist subject and before you know it you've totally gone off on one*

i wonder how good its going to be? is it just going to be like an installation artwork with minor nods to interactivity, or will it actually be a game?

i'm intrigued by the promise of recreation of "episodic violence"? How so i wonder? amongst inmates? From guards\detention officers? I can't imagine that institutionalised violence could be widespread enough to warrant inclusion in a realistic depiction of life in one of these places. Could it?
is it gonna be simulation or sensationalism, you reckon?

This really interesting. Sadly, they are getting insane with asylum seekers all over the world. Obviously the US is going completely ass backwards with all its policies and Britain is also getting really restrictive (from what I hear).

I wonder what the asylum seekers have to say about it and what the asylum seekers look like in the game (i.e. are they being portrayed as coming from a certain part of the world). I am glad to hear that they are trying to use video games for something useful. As someone that grew up in a house that didn't allow nintendo or anything like that, I have to say I never really understood how people could spend so much time with them. In the rare occassion when I saw something political demonstrated in a game, it was something like that desert storm game that came out last year, where you could have all the fun of hunting Iraqui soldiers in your very own living room! So, yeah, I am very impressed at what these people are trying to do with this game.

Have to say it pisses me off though, that these refugee advocacy groups are saying it undermines the plight of asylum seekers, as if being put in detention centers after all they have survived doesn't! It treats people like criminals because they don't want to stay in countries where some have been raped, tortured, or watched their family members murdered during ethnic cleansing and other insanities. Yeah, that isn't all of them, but normally if people are packing up and leaving everything that is familiar to them and all the people they love behind, its for a damn good reason and not just because they want to mooch off the government.

I don't know about oz but in canada the immigrants are very hard working people and they are usually pretty succesful and bring a lot to the country. Canadas going to suffer big time from a population shortage as our baby boomers retire and die so I think it's big time in canadas own interest that we let more immigrants in (right now it's pretty much a token amount)

Really the people who abuse social welfare are mostly some canadians who have lived here for several generations.

I feel very sorry for the people in the detention centres. I think this game is a good idea, it brings attention back to the issue. I send my love to the people in them all over the world, they are very brave and strong people

I just wanted to add one more thing. About a year ago I was working on a farm with a man from overseas and someone asked him (quite rudely)how he got here. His answer? "Same way you did. By boat" Too many times people forget that at some stage the majority of us came from somewhere else (in my case I think it must be another planet!!)unless of course you are indiginous to the area. How can people be so cruel to other human beings? When they had on the media about 'boat people' I heard comments at my work from so called normal people saying they should bomb the boats. Is it any wonder I left this workplace?

I would like to admit here and now to being a "plane-person". I arrived in this country by plane, without a passport, having paid large amounts of money for the privilege. (ie, I was young so I arrived on my mum's passport the first time, and plane tickets were expensive on those days )

I am an immigrant. And I am bloody lucky.

I am probably a lot less patriotic than these people in detention camps would be if they had been treated with respect.

I am probably a lot less grateful than these people would be if they had been treated with respect.

I am probably more likely to go overseas to live, taking the money and knowledge I gained in Australia overseas.

It took me ages to take out Australian citizenship.

There are people there who would be the most enthusiastic and most valuable citizens ever, if only they had been treated with some respect.

Yes, screening needs to occur. It is vitally important to Australia that we are aware of who is coming into the country. However we need to treat people humanely and with dignity during this process. If we do not, it undermines the whole concept of "innocent until proven guilty" upon which our legal system is based.

/end rant

here's another article with a better screenshot!