29 November 2002

The Refugee Action Committee (RAC) in Canberra has launched a petition, calling for an independent judicial inquiry into SIEVX. You can download and/or print out copies here:

In the past few days, Democrats leader Senator Andrew Bartlett has declared his willingness to move for such an inquiry in the Senate. The new Labor senator for South Australia, Linda Kirk, has also recently tabled a petition on SIEVX.

We would like to appeal to everyone interested in the SIEVX Affair to support this petition. Please print it out and get as many signatures as you can in the next week, and rush the petitions either to the Refugee Action Committe in Canberra, or to Senator Bartlett's office at Parliament House, Canberra. The Senate reconvenes on Monday 2 December, until 12th. The RAC will continue collecting signatures afterwards; so please send in later signatures as well, or take them to your local Senators.

In other news, Ghassan Nakhoul won a coveted and prestigious Walkley award last night for his Arabic radio program on SIEVX - The Five Mysteries of SIEVX.

Ghassan Nakhoul is one of only a handful of people to have interviewed many of the SIEVX survivors and the English language transcript of his radio program is a vitally important source document for those of us researching the SIEVX Affair.

We would like to congratulate Ghassan Nakhoul on his outstanding achievement. Click here to see a video clip of Ghassan receiving his award.