Tragedy of refugee Australia sent back
Sunday, June 22nd, 2008Mary-Anne Toy; 21/6/08
Bill Zhang, a school teacher who became a dissident after being swept up in the 1989 Tiananmen Square democracy protests, killed himself last Saturday night. He threw himself off the sixth or seventh floor of a friend’s housing estate in the southern province of Guangdong because he had lost the will to keep fighting to return to Australia. Mr Zhang (not his real name) lived in Sydney for eight years, driving a bottle recycling truck in Botany, while he kept applying for a protection visa. He was refused six times - the refugee tribunal doubted his story - and ended up in Villawood detention centre before being deported last year.
