Australia’s folly returns Afghan Hazaras to torture and death

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade warns in the starkest terms of the dangers of travel to Afghanistan. In its “Do not travel” advice dated September 16 2014, DFAT writes of “the extremely dangerous security situation and the very high threat of terrorist attack”. Attacks, DFAT notes, “can occur anywhere, any time” and: “No province can be considered immune from violence.” Furthermore, DFAT warns:

Overland travel is dangerous. Taliban and al-Qa’ida members are active in many parts of the country, thereby creating a significant security risk.

These are prescient comments indeed. However, warnings of this kind, which DFAT has been voicing for a long time, seem to have had precious little impact on the handling of Naseri’s application for refugee protection.

His case was assessed by a member of the Refugee Review Tribunal, Paul Millar, in December 2012. Millar expressed no doubts about Naseri’s credibility, but inadvertently showed how those who lack a “feel” for the situation in a disrupted state such as Afghanistan can get things horribly wrong. In effect, he narrowed his focus to the possibility of there being a safe route from Kabul to Naseri’s district:

The Tribunal is only considering the route for the applicant to make a journey from Kabul back to his native area. In those circumstances, the Tribunal accepts that the applicant is at risk as a Hazara of suffering harm in making that journey but the Tribunal finds that the level of risk does not reach the threshold of a real chance.

Millar added that “country information before the Tribunal is to the effect that Afghans who return to their country after seeking asylum in Western countries are not targeted for harm on that basis”.

No Hazara can safely return to Afghanistan