Australia Asylum Policy ‘Draconian’: Rights Group

Jakarta Globe, January 22, 2014

An exhausted boy during a rescue operation in Cidaun, Cianjur, West Java,
Indonesia on July 24, 2013. (EPA Photo/Andra Subhan)

[Updated November 23]

Australia has neglected its legal responsibility to protect the rights of asylum seekers in favor of popular domestic appeal, Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday at the launch of its 2014 World Report.

In its 24th edition of the report, HRW slammed Australia’s scare-mongering politics and punitive resettlement policies.

“Last year Australia’s two major political parties were hell-bent on using cruel policies to deter asylum seekers, even at the expense of Australia’s international reputation,” said Elaine Pearson, director of HRW Australia.

In 2013, the Abbott government’s Operation Sovereign Borders policy promised to combat people smuggling by empowering the navy to turn back boats carrying asylum seekers.

HRW’s report said policies like these demonized asylum seekers, and risked destroying Australia’s global standing as a leader on human rights in Asia Pacific.

“It is a case of the richest country in the region foisting its burdens off onto poorer countries,” Pearson said.

She likened the impact of Australia’s mandatory offshore detention policy to the damage the US detention center in Guantanamo Bay had caused to that country’s human rights record.

“Australia risks its war on people smuggling being compared to another country that has had an abysmal record in an offshore jail, and of course I’m talking about the US and Guantanamo,” she said.

The report said Australia’s policy of mandatory detention in offshore processing centers in Papua New Guinea and Nauru exposed asylum seekers to harsh and unsatisfactory conditions.

Last year, after visiting the processing centers, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reported that the facilities were neither fair nor humane, and failed to meet international standards.

Pearson said the ban on journalists entering processing centers and the secrecy surrounding Operation Sovereign Borders meant information was difficult to verify.

On Tuesday, a group of asylum seekers claimed they had been burned and beaten by the Australian navy before being returned to Indonesia under the policy to “turn back the boats.”

Australian Immigration Minister Scott Morrison denied the allegations, telling reporters in Sydney “the Australian government is not going to put up with people sledging the Australian navy.”

Pearson said the public’s right to information must be prioritized, as it was difficult to the get to the bottom of issues when “what happens at sea, stays at sea.”

“It is not sufficient to rely on the Australian government to act in the best interests of the people, when clearly this is not the case,” she said. She predicted Operation Sovereign Borders would not achieve Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s goal of stopping asylum-seeker boats.

“When people continue to be mistreated in detention centers, in worst cases being subjected to rape or human torture, then of course people are going to do anything they can to escape those conditions,” Pearson said.

HRW Indonesia researcher Andreas Harsono agreed, saying asylum seekers boarded the boats because there was no certainty for them in Indonesia.

“The ideal situation would be for those people not to be detained at all; for their children to have access to education and to have the right to work,” Pearson said.

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Asylum seekers from Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran cry as Indonesian officers
 force them to leave the Australian vessel Hermia docked at Indah Kiat port in
 Merak, Indonesia’s Banten province in this April 9, 2012 file photo. (Reuters
Photo/Aulia Pratama)

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