“Human Rights are detrimental to successful (Muslim) refugee settlement in Australia’’

How did such a troubled family get let in?

Former Brothers For Life leader Farhad Qaumi has been sentenced to a minimum of 43 years’ jail for a series of “outlandish and lawless” gangland shootings and the cold blooded murder of Sydney debt collector Joe Antoun.

His brother Mumtaz Qaumi was sentenced to a maximum 50 and minimum 36 years’ jail for the murder and a number of other violent shootings. After learning he would be in his 60s when finally released, Mumtaz waved at his supporters in court and gave a thumbs up.

Why do we accept people from tribal war zones who are likely to have such trouble fitting in that the judge in this case accepts their background helps to explain their murderous rampage:

Farhad Qaumi ’s is 34 years old and has 3 children between the ages of 3 and 5 years… He was born in Afghanistan and had a chaotic, traumatic and disrupted childhood. At the age of six or seven, his primary school was bombed and his teacher and best friend were both killed. His family fled Afghanistan due to the ongoing civil war and turmoil. They went to India in 1988 before migrating to Australia in 1993. The family experienced difficulties in adjusting to their new life in Australia.

The psychiatric report refers to the opinion of the offenders’ sister that their father suffered from “war depression” and inflicted “frequent harsh physical discipline” on Farhad..

The offender resorted to drugs for a sustained period in an attempt to “avoid” feelings of “fear and anger” arising from years of sustained traumatic experiences. His drug use commenced at the age of 13 years…

The drug use in this case is more likely to be the result of self-indulgence although I do not discount the possibility that the use of drugs at a young age arose from an attempt to escape a dysfunctional and brutalised childhood…

Dr Eagle diagnosed Farhad with a complex post-traumatic stress disorder and substance use disorder as well as an anti-social personality disorder. The latter diagnosis was based on a “pervasive pattern of disregard for the rights of others”. He was exposed to severe violence and death from a very young age and the repeated exposure “re-traumatising him and thus exacerbating existing trauma related symptoms”. The report suggests that the offender’s experience of trauma has “altered his perspective of the world, such that he views the world as an unsafe and terrifying place” and resulted in “persistent feelings of fear and anger”. The offender’s life experiences and the psychological conditions resulting from this trauma have played a role in a life caught in the cycle of violence and criminality.

Sounds like the shrink who penned this is himself traumatized.

I accept that the experience of trauma may have altered Farhad Qaumi ’s perspective of the world. While the seriousness of the offending means that nothing can excuse the choices that he has made, his early life as a traumatised child and the post-traumatic stress disorder that has resulted is an important consideration in settling on the weight to be afforded to general deterrence and in determining whether his moral culpability is diminished as a result.

I don’t dispute the judge’s findings at all. I would, though, have liked further discussion on the role of culture and religion in producing Qaumi’s attitude to violence, manhood and people not in his gang or wider family.

But the judgement alone suggests we run a heightened risk of importing the likes of Qaumi when we bring in refugees from those sorts of brutal conflicts in those sorts of tribal and Third World war zones.

Then there’s the Islamic factor that the judge did not go into.

Result: mayhem, murder and incredible brutality in Sydney.

Is that a sane immigration program at work?

And here is something related – a government study that tells us to be culturally sensitive to refugees who bash their wives, too.

We run a refugee progam that imports men more likely to bash their wives? And our response must be not to insist so much on our values but be more “sensitive” to the ones we import?

AUSTRALIANS should show “cultural­ sensitivity’’ to migrant men who resent women’s rights and bash their wives and children, a taxpayer-funded study says.

The three-year study, funded by the Australian Research Council, concludes: “Many refugees see some human rights, in particular those relating to women and children’s rights, as detrimental to their successful settlement in Australia.’’

It says some refugees argue “women’s and child’s rights contravene the cultural values, norms and mores” of their ethnic groups…

The cultural clash is exposed in the University of NSW Centre for Refugee Research study, which found some male refugees lash out at wives and children when they suffer a “loss of status and masculinity’’.

The study calls for “cultural sensitivity and understanding of the impact on male refugees and … feelings of alienation and disappointment’’.

Australia has still not properly adjusted its refugee and immigration program to account for cultural differences that could expose Australians to greater danger.

We call this blindness “compassion” but it is in fact dangerous, and even lethal.