THE YOUNG MAN CLAIMED HE WAS FLEEING THE TALIBAN. They were killing all the Hazara, a Shi'a Muslim minority, in his village in Afghanistan, he said. He and his brothers had spent their days hiding in the mountains, but the Taliban came from an unexpected direction and caught him. The Taliban tried to force him to pray with them and struck him when he refused. He managed to escape, and his father, a poor wheat farmer, had paid a smuggler more than $3,000 to transport him to Sydney via Pakistan. Or so the refugee in his mid-20s told an official at Australia's Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs during his interview for asylum.

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