Women's Contact Deidre O'Sullivan faxes off a letter opposing the deportation order.

East Timor deportation orders condemned

Teachers at Fairfield High School have voted to condemn the decision by the Minister for Immigration to deport East Timorese students to East Timor within 28 days.

Women's Contact Deidre O'Sullivan said the students, four brothers and sisters, have been enrolled at the school and the local primary school since 2001 after arriving in Australia seeking asylum.

The order to leave Australia follows the family's application for a protection visa being refused on two occasions.

"The decision taken by the Government came with no reason attached apart from the Minister's prerogative and the teachers are outraged that the Acting Minister for Immigration, Senator Peter McGauren could claim that the students had 'character issues'," Ms O'Sullivan said.

"The students are impeccable and conscientious and are a pleasure to teach," she said.

"Other students at the school are also deeply upset by the ruling," she added.

"The decision is only adding further trauma to their already disrupted lives after they fled East Timor in 1999 in the wake of the violence after the independence referendum.

"Their house was burnt and their business destroyed so East Timor had nothing for them; to return, there would only be impoverished society."

Ms O'Sullivan said members of their family who arrived at much the same time have been granted permanent visas.

Ms O'Sullivan encourages people to join a campaign to stop the deportation of East Timorese who left the country to escape the Indonesian occupation. The campaign, instigated by Sister Susan Connelly from the Mary MacKillop Institute of East Timorese Studies, asks people to write a letter to Prime Minister John Howard or Senator Amanda Vanstone and get 10 other people to do the same.

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