Abbott lacks compassion for children in detention – » The Australian Independent Media Network.
Category: Asylum Seekers
Self-harm, hunger strikes, sexual assault: Gillian Triggs’ The Forgotten Children report finds prolonged detention ‘profoundly negative’
More than 300 children committed or threatened self-harm in a 15-month period in Australian immigration detention, 30 reported sexual assault, nearly 30 went on hunger strike and more than 200 were involved in assaults, a damning report from the Australian Human Rights Commission has found.
The long-awaited inquiry into children in immigration detention report, The Forgotten Children, found detention was inherently dangerous for children, and that “prolonged detention is having profoundly negative impacts on the mental and emotional health and development of children”.
“At the time of writing this report, children and adults had been detained for over a year on average.”
There are 257 children in Australian immigration detention, including 119 on Nauru. More than 100 children, previously held on Christmas Island, have been released into the community on the mainland on bridging visas over the past fortnight.
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The Forgotten Children report, by the president of the Australian Human Rights Commission, Professor Gillian Triggs, said despite “the best efforts” of immigration department staff and contractors to properly care for children, detention was damaging children’s mental health, making them physically, sometimes chronically, sick, and cruelling their educations.
“It is the fact of detention, particularly the the deprivation of liberty and the high numbers of mentally unwell adults, that is causing emotional and developmental disorders amongst children,” the report said.
“Children are exposed to danger by their close confinement with adults who suffer high levels of mental illness. Thirty per cent of adults detained with children have moderate to severe mental illnesses.”
Between January 2013 and March 2014, children in immigration detention were involved in:
128 incidents of actual self-harm;
171 incidents of threatened self-harm;
33 reports of being sexual assaulted;
27 cases of voluntarily starvation or hunger strike.
Under international and Australian law, children are supposed to be detained only as a measure of “last resort”.
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Australia is the only country in the world that mandatorily detains all unlawful non-citizens, including children.
Australia also holds children in indefinite detention if a parent has an adverse Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (Asio) security finding made against them.
“Some children have been detained for longer than 19 months because at least one of their parents has an adverse security assessment by Asio,” the report said. “The indefinite detention of these children raises special concerns for their physical and mental health, and their future life opportunities.”
The report raised particular concern about children on Nauru.
“Children on Nauru are suffering from extreme levels of physical, emotional, psychological and developmental distress. The commission is concerned that detention on Nauru is mandatory for children and there is no time limit on how long they will be detained.”
Triggs’ report cited evidence to the commission from the then immigration department secretary, Martin Bowles, who told an inquiry hearing the damaged caused to children by detention was known to the department.
“There is a reasonably solid literature base which we’re not contesting at all which associates a length of detention with a whole range of adverse health conditions.”
In 2004 the Human Rights Commission launched A Last Resort?, a three-year inquiry into children in detention. In the aftermath of that report, the Howard government released all children from immigration detention.
In the current report, Triggs expressed disappointment that Australia had since regressed in its treatment of asylum seeker children.
“At the time of the previous national inquiry, the number of children in detention peaked at 842 children. In July 2013, just before the change of government, a record number of 1,992 children were in detention.”
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Triggs condemned both Labor and Coalition governments for ignoring their stated commitments and legal obligations to protect children in their care.
“How had the gains that were so hard-fought at the time, and of which the Howard government were so rightly proud, disappear?
“How did we move so far away from the explicit guarantee … that ‘a minor shall only be detained as a measure of last resort’? How had we reached the situation where prime minister Rudd declared that any person (including children) who arrived by boat would enjoy ‘no advantage’ and never be settled in Australia?”
Triggs also said her commission was subject to “intense scrutiny and hostility” for conducting the inquiry: “The government at the time was initially dismissive of its findings.”
Immigration department statistics list 257 children in detention, including 119 on the island of Nauru.
There are also 28 unaccompanied child refugees, who have been released from detention to live in the community on Nauru.
Some children in detention over recent years have turned 18 and are no longer counted among child detention statistics, but are still detained.
More than 100 children, previously held on Christmas Island, have been released from detention in the last fortnight, part of the deal the government struck with Senate crossbenchers in return for their support for temporary protection legislation, passed in December.
ChilOut’s campaign coordinator, Claire Hammerton, said the report demonstrated a “dramatic failure” by successive governments to protect children in their care.
“The report confirms so many of our worst fears about the impact of detention on children. Disproportionately high rates of severe mental illness, high rates of self-harm, young children denied access to medical treatment such as hearing aids and glasses for prolonged periods. This is nothing short of state-sanctioned abuse.”
Hammerton said she was particularly concerned by children still detained on Nauru and those released to live unaccompanied in the community there.
“These children have been stripped of all hope as a result of their indefinite detention, and the findings of the Australian Human Rights Commission make it very clear that the most basic needs of these children – including access to drinking water and basic hygiene – are not being met. It is unconscionable that any government could allow children to live under these conditions, particularly when both sides of government have acknowledged that detention is not a deterrent.”
The Reverend Elenie Poulos, the national director of Uniting Justice Australia, said the findings of the report were a national disgrace.
“The report describes how children are woken every day at 11pm and 5am by guards shining a torch light in their faces as they conduct headcounts. Children are being toilet trained in filthy conditions.”
She said the living conditions on Christmas Island – where families were housed in shipping containers – were grossly inadequate.
“Dozens of children with physical disabilities and mental illness have received inadequate care and 100 children on Christmas Island had no education for over one year. Over 30% of children and parents interviewed described themselves as ‘always sad and crying’,” Poulos said.
“A family in which both parents and their child are profoundly deaf were denied hearing aids for seven months, so the parents couldn’t hear the cries of their child.”
Unicef Australia said mandatory and indefinite detention of children exposed them to sexual violence and abuse, as well as causing significant mental and physical illness and developmental delays.
“The findings of the Australian Human Rights Commission report are expected to confirm what is already known globally: detention is a dangerous place for children and can cause life-long harm,” Unicef’s Amy Lamoin said.
Four men were suddenly returned to detention centres on Manus Island and Nauru after being brought to Australia for medical treatment
Four asylum seekers have been forcibly removed from a Darwin detention centre where they were receiving medical treatment, and returned to Manus Island and Nauru in the middle of the night.
The men had been brought over from Manus Island and Nauru for medical treatment but their level of recovery before being returned is not know. It is believed one man suffers chronic pancreatitis.
Two asylum seekers were returned to Nauru and two to Manus Island. Guardian Australia has had the removal confirmed by separate sources, but multiple calls over several days to the office of immigration minister Peter Dutton have not been returned.
It is understood at least one detainee was able to alert advocates on Friday that he had been called for an impromptu meeting with his case officer – roundly considered a signal that he will be put on a flight that night and sent to the offshore facilities, often with no opportunity to contact legal representatives. The forced removals have occurred several times over recent months according to advocates.
Guardian Australia was told a man returned to Papua New Guinea two weeks ago had a medical condition which meant he could require immediate emergency care at some point. It’s not known if he has been returned to the Manus Island facility or is being housed in Port Moresby.
Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said Manus Island “is in the midst of a humanitarian crisis” and no one else should be sent there.
“These four people had been sent to mainland Australia because of medical concerns, none of them deserve to be sent back to the hellholes of detention on Manus or Nauru,” she told Guardian Australia.
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“These offshore detention camps are making people sick. They are dangerous and inhumane and must be closed.”
Darwin-based lawyer John Lawrence, who has been representing an Iranian man, referred to as Martin, who has been on hunger strike for more than two months, told Guardian Australia the forced removals are “typical of the arbitrary nature which this department deals with human beings”.
Lawrence also described the transfers to Manus Island as “lunacy” considering the volatile current environment after protests saw more than 500 detainees refuse food and water, some sewing their lips together, others swallowing razor blades.
Fifty-eight detainees were forcibly removed from the facility by security and allege they were beaten. The men are now being housed in a windowless cell, despite facing no charges.
Both the Australian and PNG governments have denied using improper force.
Guardian Australia was also told some men – including two who allegedly witnessed the murder of Reza Barati during unrest in February – were placed in solitary confinement.
At least 15 more Iranian detainees inside Darwin’s Wickham Point detention centre have embarked on hunger strike protests in the last two weeks. They have all been refused refugee status but cannot be sent back as Iran will not accept involuntary returns.
“The only choice left to him is to go back voluntarily and he’s steadfastly refused to do that for the same reasons as [Martin],” Lawrence said of one 28-year-old detainee he had spoken with.
Calls to Dutton’s office about the hunger-striking detainees have also gone unanswered.
The reports coming out of Manus Island right now should be enough to shock us, but they aren’t. What will it take? Barrister Julian Burnside has some ideas.
Reports about what is happening on Manus Island are mixed. According to inside sources, hundreds of asylum seekers are on a hunger strike, many have sewn their lips together, and tensions are high. According to Immigration Minister Peter Dutton, security levels have been high, as a precaution, and the hunger strike and lip sewing are the result of urging by refugee advocates. There has been little apparent public concern.
Some of the hunger strikers have said they are willing to die, and want to donate their organs to Australians. The public, in its post-Christmas torpor, was unmoved. Letters sent from Manus have been published, but this has provoked outrage only in that minority of Australians who are concerned about refugees. The public remain unmoved.
In February 2014, Reza Berati was murdered inside the Manus detention facility, allegedly by members of the staff who were supposedly keeping the detainees safe. I have been informed that eyewitnesses to the murder are still being held in solitary confinement. No one has yet been brought to trial for the murder. In September 2014, Hamid Kehazaei died of septicaemia after an infected foot was inadequately treated. Nobody has been held to account for his death in what looks like significant medical negligence.
Public reaction to these things has been minimal.
There are a few facts we all know, or should know. First (and arguably the most significant fact): the asylum seekers held on Manus and in other detention centres are not “illegal”. They have committed no offence by coming to Australia seeking protection.
They are held in captivity without charge and without trial, because their conduct in seeking asylum is not an offence under Australian law. The government of Australia, and parts of the media, refer to them as “illegals” because it makes locking them up look faintly respectable. When they arrive in Australia asking to be protected from persecution, Australia takes them forcibly, against their will, to Manus. There they are held in uncomfortable, unhygienic conditions in tropical heat. They wait until their claims for refugee status are determined. Some of them have been there for about two years.
It should shock us to know how comprehensively the government has lied to us about Manus. It lies to us by calling asylum seekers “illegal”. It lies to us about the conditions in which they are held. Maybe it would shock us to know that the people who are being mistreated by our government (and at vast expense to the taxpayer) are just ordinary people: human beings who have the same hopes and desires, the same frailties and fears as most of us.
Second: It is very clear that, if you lock up an innocent person in circumstances where they do not know how long it will be before they are released, they fall into hopelessness and despair after about 12 or 18 months. One very well-documented response to this despair is self-harm. Typically, they will cut themselves, or sew their lips together, or try to starve themselves to death.
Third: conditions in Manus are very harsh. In October 2013, the UNHCR reported on conditions on Manus. It noted:
Overall, UNHCR was deeply troubled to observe that the current policies, operational approaches and harsh physical conditions at the [detention centre] do not comply with international standards and in particular …constitute arbitrary and mandatory detention under international law; …and do not provide safe and humane conditions of treatment in detention…
There is not much doubt that our treatment of asylum seekers in Manus constitutes a crime against humanity. This is a matter of legal analysis, not political rhetoric. The hard facts about the horrific conditions on Manus Island that I’ve outlined above may not be enough to shock us, but the one thing that really might shock us is to see Abbott, Morrison and Dutton prosecuted in the International Criminal Court for those crimes. That’s a pro bono case I would gladly prosecute.
Julian Burnside AO QC is an Australian barrister and an advocate for human rights and fair treatment of refugees.
So much for that quintessential Australian phrase ‘a fair go for all’. It doesn’t exist in the minds of our policy makers, writes Jennifer Wilson.
In general, it’s always seemed to me that when governments or individuals take an increasingly hard, harsh and inhumane stand on an issue it’s a clear signal that they’ve actually lost the battle, and are on their way to losing the war.
In a political sense, I’m thinking of the current situation in detention facilities on Manus Island. New Immigration Minister Peter Dutton is promising to maintain Scott Morrison’s “hard-line” against asylum seekers who have resorted to self-harm and protest, methods which are, in reality, their only means of expression, as the Australian government has virtually denied them access to legal process and natural justice.
This hard-line against asylum seekers protesting their fate began in Woomera and Baxter detention centres in 1999, at the instigation of the Howard LNP government. It was maintained by the ALP governments led by Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd. Sixteen years of both major parties taking a hard-line against waterborne asylum seekers has achieved absolutely nothing any of us can be proud of, and it won’t.
Similarly, the hard-line threatened by the Abbott government against the young unemployed that will see them starving and homeless as they are denied benefits for six months will achieve nothing any of us can be proud of, and will ruin lives for a very long time and likely permanently.
Taking a hard-line is very rarely necessary, and very rarely useful. A hard-line shouldn’t be the default position. Instead negotiation, mediation, conversation, and communication are civilised and humane methods of approaching difficulties. When all else fails, by all means try the hard-line, but to do this first is cruel and inhumane, and shows a lack of intelligence, imagination and skill.
Human beings have a tremendous capacity for good will and understanding. It’s a great shame our leaders don’t value this capacity, and instead believe our strength lies in brutality. It doesn’t. It never has and it never will. ‘All cruelty springs from weakness’, as the philosopher Seneca noted.
If governments and individuals are too weak and cowardly to sit across a table from other human beings in an effort to resolve difference and difficulty, they will inevitably resort to cruelty of one kind or another. Ignoring another human being in need is just as cruel as taking direct and punitive action against him or her. There are countless stories of asylum seekers achieving success and making considerable contributions to Australian society when they are given the opportunity. Instead we destroy them because our governments believe the destruction of human lives and human potential demonstrates political strength and determination.
Peter Dutton may well congratulate himself for emulating Scott Morrison’s abhorrent tactics against those legally seeking asylum in Australia. But emulating a bully is no great achievement. Australian governments have for sixteen years now proved themselves to be capable only of bullying behaviour towards human beings in the greatest distress and need, be they asylum seekers or their own citizens. Cruelty is not a strength. It is the most appalling, base and destructive weakness.
A detainee on Manus Island is shown being loaded into the back of a vehicle after falling ill in this picture supplied to Guardian Australia. Photograph: Supplied
More than 100 asylum seekers are being treated for dehydration in makeshift medical centre, but minister for immigration says ‘they will never be settled in Australia’ despite protests
Ben Doherty and Helen Davidson
Protests continue on Manus Island, with detainees vowing not to give up their protest, and the government equally unbowed they must be resettled in PNG.
Some men in the detention centre have been refusing food and water since Tuesday and are dangerously unwell.
International Health and Medical Services (IHMS) staff on the island have converted the staff mess hall into an overflow emergency medical centre.
More than 100 men from Mike compound, where the hunger strike started on Tuesday, are now under medical care, most from severe dehydration.
Two men who swallowed razor blades, and four who drank detergent, are also in medical care.
In the Delta and Oscar compounds, where the protests have spread and the tension has been greatest, men not on hunger strike spent the night clapping and cheering and shouting “What do we want? Freedom?”.
Some men have spent 18 months in detention on Manus and have asked to be handed over to the care of the United Nations. Others still want to be moved to Australia, where their families live.
Video seen by Guardian Australian shows PNG riot police walking between the Delta and Oscar compounds.
Reports that riot police entered Delta and clashed with detainees in an effort to force them back into their rooms, remain unconfirmed.
Guardian Australia has obtained video footage that shows boisterous, but peaceful protests in the camp.
Detainees say they will not yield.
Manus Island unrest
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PNG security forces enter Delta block on Friday where there were unconfirmed reports of fighting. Photograph: Supplied
They are protesting against the length of their detention, the conditions under which they are being held, and against the threat of being forcibly sent to live in the PNG community, where they fear they will be attacked.
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Less than a year ago, Iranian asylum seeker Reza Barati was murdered during riots in the centre, allegedly by PNG nationals who invaded the centre and attacked detainees.
The detainees wrote in a letter to the Australian government on Friday: “some of us are about to die, but will still continue our way [protest] and we will never change our decision”.
“Dear Mr Minister, PNG is not safe place for us and if we are supposed to die there, we will die here in the centre. Our message today is very clear to the immigration of Australia, our decision will never change. Hand us over to the UN.”
But immigration minister Peter Dutton said the government will not change its policy.
“Whilst there has been a change of minister, the absolute resolve of me as the new minister and of the government is to make sure that for those transferees, they will never arrive in Australia. They will never be settled in Australia.”
A PNG government spokesman told Guardian Australia no police had entered the detention centre but that amid the heightened tensions “security had gone in with workers”.
He had not seen the images from Manus Island, but said a senior person from there had conveyed the information.
“It wasn’t extraordinary but of course with the tension there as we know, I think it was just extra precautions.”
He said he had seen reports of locals going in with police “but it was nothing like that”.
It is legal to cross borders without papers for the purposes of seeking asylum, even under Australian law, so why don’t our media challenge politicians who say the opposite? Marilyn Shepherd comments.
In 1999, then Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock introduced laws into Federal Parliament claiming anyone who pays a so-called people smuggler to bring them to Australia are criminals, paying criminals and therefore not really refugees.
In March 2000, Indonesian fishing crews began to face courts on this so-called smuggling charge, at which time the courts unanimously stated that it was not people smuggling but that the passengers were merely being transported to Australia to face the authorities and ask for asylum. However, the Indonesia crews were gaoled because the courts said they were “forced” to uphold our law due to significant expense to Australia of assessing “illegal” immigrant claims.
In November 2000, the UN drafted and approved a Smuggling of Migrants protocol, which excluded the movement of refugees from the criminal elements of crossing borders without papers and stating clearly that people must not be punished simply for being smuggled.
[See the legal opinion by Professor Ben Saul, an international law expert, here.]
There have been two Senate inquiries into the stories of people smugglers, after children as young as 13 were found to be gaoled in adult prisons in Western Australia. Not one expert agreed with the Government position that seeking asylum had anything to do with people smuggling, because it is legal to cross borders without papers for the purposes of seeking asylum, even under Australian law.
Even after those two investigations, children being gaoled in adult prisons, other children being kidnapped by Australia and their families in Indonesia forced to think they had died at sea, we continue to have a media that refuses to ever concede it is not people smuggling to seek asylum in any other country but here.
The culmination of that brutal ignorance was writ large in Brisbane last week in the case of stateless Rohingya baby Ferouz, born in Australia to people already recognised by the UNHCR as stateless refugees, but deemed by Australia to have arrived in the womb by boat.
It is not the first time such a decision has been made and upheld — even, in the case of six-year-old Tania Singh, as far up the chain as the High Court.
I am unaware if Tania was deported, but I know for sure that Mazhar Bakhtiyari was deported as were two children of Abdul Khadem who were born in Australian refugee prisons.
The judge also said the law’s aim was to discourage the use of people smugglers.
If the government’s decision was reversed, he said:
“… there may be more incentive for pregnant women to engage people smugglers.”
Since I wrote this article, which proves comprehensively that seeking asylum is not people smuggling as our media and politicians claim, it is simply exercising a legal right, not one journalist has challenged Scott Morrison, Chris Bowen, Tony Burke or – anyone else – about the twin lies we tell to justify our shocking abuses towards refugees.
Not a single journalist has even mentioned the smuggling protocol, which excludes refugees and forbids all forms of punishment merely for being “smuggled”.
Terrible decisions and laws based on lies have terrible easily foreseen consequences, yet none of the usual suspects in the MSM will explore those in any great detail, just publish the occasional report.
Turning back the boats was the mantra of Abbott and Morrison before the last election and the MSM cheered them on as if it was the most sensible thing on earth. The consequences of that mantra are still being played out in the most horrific circumstances.
First, we heard claims about refugees allegedly being tortured and burnt by the ADF and dumped on the ocean in orange boxes 30 nautical miles from the Indonesian coast and left to die. That included babies and pregnant women, but Morrison didn’t care a jot, he simply claimed sovereignty and protecting our borders, and not one journalist had the wit to ask when Indonesia became our borders.
Brilliant historian Marg Hutton has kept a running record of every circumstance, the numbers of refugees turned away and the number killed by our cruel policies of piracy, kidnapping and trafficking across international waters and ABC 7.30 finally showed us what happens in the orange boxes.
All this with the stated claim of “saving lives at sea”.
Also in the name of saving lives at sea, we see refugees being murdered and permanently maimed on Manus Island as shown by ABC Four Corners.
We have seen stories of the rape of refugee men on Manus Island and now stories of torture among refugees we have refouled to Sri Lanka and, recently, Afghanistan.
Among the occasional stories like these, the stand out consistent reportage has come from numerous special reports being leaked to the Guardian UK and reported by Paul Farrell and Oliver Laughland. Meanwhile, the rest of the media can’t even be bothered to read the Ombudsman’s reports of people going insane in detention.
At the same time, Immigration Minister Morrison refuses to assess a single claim until he can change the law to temporary protection only.
On ABC Foreign Correspondent this week, came a stark comparison with Italy, where we saw how an ethical and principled nation deals with asylum seekers.
In the High Court, the Government argues that we can do what we like at sea with immunity even though nothing Morrison is doing has been put to parliamentary vote. Now, to pre-empt all court cases, Morrison has attempted to delete the Refugee Convention from the Migration Act, as if that somehow excludes us from the law.
It’s shameful that, due to lazy politicians pandering to racists and media too lazy to challenge them, we are regularly now attempting to traffic babies to their deaths.
So entrenched is the smuggler brainwashing a Federal Court judge thinks he can cite an explanatory memorandum to deny refuge to a baby.
Human rights campaigner and refugee advocate Victoria Martin-Iverson has very publicly challenged Crown Casinos boss James Packer about his decision to go into business with the brutal and murderous Rajapaksa regime.
James Packer:
“Sri Lanka is a beautiful and unique country with a huge tourism potential and I have great confidence in its future and it is Sri Lanka’s time to shine in Asia.”
A tribunal of 11 eminent judges has unanimously found the Sri Lankan government guilty of the crime of genocide against ethnic Tamil people. Sitting in Bremen, from December 7 to 10, the Second Session of the Peoples’ Tribunal on Sri Lanka found that the crime of genocide has been and is being committed against the Eelam Tamils as a national group.
This information went to Canberra and had been ignored by government for reasons of policy and politics. This would suggest that both major parties knowingly acted illegally with respect to processing Tamil asylum seekers. How low can we go?
Lower, it seems. I was also informed that the high commission has now ceased briefings from Tamil sources in the north, presumably on the basis of what they don’t know they don’t have to lie about. A form of deniability adopted and refined by Hitler’s Third Reich towards the final solution of the Jewish question.
The tribunal requested that states able to do so should take Tamil asylum seekers as refugees
James Packer’s response:
He excused the decision with the fatuous observation that the International Criminal Court and the UN were too politicised. He expressed disbelief that the criticisms were factual, based on anything other than politics.
Then he mentioned the pending “election”, which he said would be returning President Mahinda Rajapaksa with a substantial majority. The irony of that prediction was clearly lost on him.
Perhaps worried he had been a tad too dismissive of the very real human rights concerns, he went on to observe ‒ rather oddly, I thought ‒ that war is hell and the Middle East (?) in turmoil. He said he and his family were terribly sad about that and noted that few nations were free from allegations of human rights abuses.
Trevor Grant’s explosive new book, SRI LANKA’S SECRETS pulls no punches on
‘How the Rajapaksa regime gets away with murder.’
It’s the book that President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his corrupt and nepotistic cronies didn’t want published.
When you read it, you will know why.
SRI LANKA’S SECRETS is a troubling dossier of the horrors and massacres perpetrated upon its own peoples by an absolute Government that masquerades as a democracy — a lie that is shamefully affirmed as truth by many expedient foreign governments, including Australia.
In his foreword, the fearless human rights advocate Geoffrey Robertson QC, writes:
When the Rajapaksa government forces moved in for the ‘final solution’ to the Tamil Tiger problem, they first banned all foreign journalists, human rights monitors and UN observers.
Thinking themselves safe from outside scrutiny, they mass murdered tens of thousands of innocent civilians through bombardment from land and sea … But truth will out …
ANDREW WILKIE has written to the International Criminal Court seeking to prosecute the Abbott government for crimes against humanity, specifically asylum seekers.
The Tasmanian Independent MP and human rights advocate and lawyer Greg Barns have requested Tony Abbott and his 19 Cabinet colleagues be the subject of inquiries by the ICC prosecutor.
In his letter, Mr Wilkie nominates evidence of crimes against humanity, including “imprisonment and other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law”.
There is also the “deportation and other forcible transfer of population” and “other intential acts causing great suffering, or serious injury to body and mental and physical health,” he writes.
“Members of the Australian government are pursuing policies that are designed to deter persons arriving by boats from seeking protection in Australia.”
They include sending people to Nauru and Manus Island, he says.
“The effect of the policy is that men, women and children are being forcibly relocated and then subjected to arbitrary imprisonment through mandatory and sometimes indefinite detention.
“The conditions they are forced to endure in detention are causing great suffering as well as serious bodily and mental injury.”
Mr Wilkie accuses the government of not only breaching the article of Crimes Against Humanity, but also “the Refugee Convention, Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights”.
Large numbers of asylum seekers are also being put at risk by being “forcibly” returned to countries from which they have fled, including Sri Lanka and Afghanistan, he said.
“The Government is pandering to racism, xenophobia and selfishness instead of acting like leaders. This is why I’ve asked the Prosecutor to initiate an investigation into the Prime Minister and the Cabinet because, if they won’t listen to the swathe of community outrage, then hopefully they’ll listen to the International Criminal Court,” Mr Wilkie added in a statement.
“Article 7 of the Statute defines ‘crimes against humanity’ to mean acts such as deportation, imprisonment or other severe deprivation of liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law, torture and other similar acts that are committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population.”
Mr Barns said the pair is asking “the ICC Prosecuting authority” to “gather information, analyse evidence and make a report to the pre-trial chamber of the ICC asking it to authorise an investigation into the commission of offences by the Cabinet of the Abbott Government”.
The Australian government is warning Pakistani asylum-seekers against attempting to illegally enter the country.
In an advertisement printed in Pakistani newspapers on Friday, the Australian government warned readers against getting duped by people smugglers claiming they can transport them to Australian waters in hopes of getting asylum.
Written in bold at the top of the advertisement are the words: “NO WAY. You will not make Australia home.”
“If you get on a boat without a visa , you will not end up in Australia. Any vessel seeing to illegally enter Australia will be intercepted and safely removed beyond Australian waters,” reads the advertisement.
It adds that the rules apply to all: “Families, children, unaccompanied children, educated and skilled”.
The ad is worded in English, Urdu, Pashto, Dari, and Hazargi languages.
“No matter who you are or where you are from, you will not make Australia home. Think again before you waste your money. People smugglers are lying,” warns the Australian government.
The advertisement is part of a campaign “Operation Sovereign Borders”, a military-led border security initiative by the government to combat maritime people smuggling and protect Australia’s borders.
“Australia is serious about protecting its borders and will stop anyone who attempts to come illegally by boat…[People] should not believe the lies of smugglers and there is no way they will make Australia home,” warns the government on the OSB website.
Australia has toughened its policy on asylum-seekers in recent years, with those arriving on unauthorised boats now refused residency in Australia even if they are deemed refugees.
Instead they are held in detention camps on nearby islands and are expected to be resettled in those countries if their claims are valid.
The Australian government has come under increased scrutiny for its treatment of asylum seekers, but the government claims its policies are meant to prevent people risking their lives at sea.
Will we hear anything from Scott Morrison on this? Or will he have the Monthly charged under the new whistle blowers act?
Oct 4, 2014
Taliban tortures Abbott government deportee
The first Hazara asylum seeker refouled by the federal government was taken by the Taliban inside a month.
An Afghan police photograph of Zainullah Naseri after his escape from his Taliban captors.
Zainullah Naseri has been in Afghanistan three weeks when the Taliban find him. They stop the car in which he is travelling and find in his pockets his Australian driver’s licence – a memento of the country that on the night of August 26 made him the first Hazara to be forcibly deported back to the country he was fleeing.
The six Taliban also find Zainullah’s iPhone, but he pretends it is not working. They do not believe him. Zainullah is punched and kicked. “They told me they would kill me if I didn’t open it.”
The Taliban bundle him into a car and after 20 minutes’ driving, take him to a mud house ringed by high walls. They beat him with wet rods cut fresh from a tree, demanding he open his phone. Again they threaten to kill him. Zainullah relents and offers his PIN.
Immediately, they are scrolling through pictures: the Opera House, the Harbour Bridge, a video of the new year he recorded in 2014. Speaking in broken Dari, the Taliban tell him, “You from an infidel country.” They mean Australia. “You infidel. We kill you. Why you come to Afghanistan? You a spy.”
He tells them the truth: he was deported after his refugee application was rejected. But they do not believe him. He is laid out on the ground and again is beaten. “I swear to God, I was deported from Australia,” he pleads. “I don’t live there anymore.” The six men do not relent. “They kept bashing me,” Zainullah remembers.
Hellish escape
It was thoughts of his daughter that prompted Zainullah to break out. On the second night in captivity, at 10pm, he heard gunfire in the valley. He saw that the Taliban had gone out to fight and locked the gate. He realised it was an opportunity to escape but his feet were chained together. He groped in the darkness, found a rock, and brought it down onto the chain every time he heard gunfire.
At the back of the house, steps led up to a traditional Afghan squat toilet system, a hole above a chamber below. Having broken his chain, he ran for the toilet and dropped into the excrement. The human waste is collected for fertiliser, accessible with a shovel from outside the house’s wall through a hatchway. Zainullah wriggled out through the hatch. For eight hours, covered in faeces, he walked through darkness and early morning. At some point, exhausted, he heard more gunfire – the whizzing of bullets as they passed his ear.
A video captured by Afghan police shows officers firing on him, suspecting him to be a suicide bomber. A voice calling “help” is heard in the darkness. Moments later, three police speaking in Hazaragi are shown in the video, saying in angry voices, “Who are you?” and “Raise your hands”.
‘Not a real risk’
Mohammad Musa Mahmodi, the executive director of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, said: “It’s totally unacceptable to return a refugee to Afghanistan in this critical moment. It contradicts their [Australian] own law not to deport refugees where they face danger.”
Asked about Zainullah’s case and whether any attempt had been made to assess the ongoing safety of deported asylum seekers, a spokesperson for Immigration Minister Scott Morrison said: “People who have exhausted all outstanding avenues to remain in Australia and have no lawful basis to remain are expected to depart.”
Depressed and alone
On the day of his deportation, about 10am, he was transferred to a solitary room where he was asked repeatedly to return to Afghanistan. “A person talked so much, it was as if there was a wasp on my mind.” That night, he was taken to Sydney airport. He and six department escorts boarded the plane from a different door, away from other passengers’ eyes. “I did not know where I was. I did not sleep for two nights. My mind was not working. I just knew that my world is going to end.”
The Afghan embassy in Canberra didn’t issue a passport for Zainullah, disagreeing with his forced removal from Australia. Instead, the Australian government issued a travel document bearing his name and photo, but not his signature. The document was carried by his escorts, who showed it at every checkpoint. He was given a photocopy.
Walking alongside me, he shakes his head. “I ask why the Australian government wasted my time for so long. Made me wonder for three years. Then they dump me here. I have no future now.”
Foreign Aid inducement plus costs will abrogate responsibility.
It will be a silenent “operational matter”
Cambodia is a refuge for political expediency
Date
September 27, 2014
Editorial
The Abbott government’s squalid deal with one of Asia’s poorest and most corrupt nations reflects badly on Australia, harms our regional ambition to be seen as a friendly neighbour and abdicates our moral responsibility to the vulnerable.
‘Their standards are not our standards – and it is very wrong of Australia to send people who have come into our care, however briefly, to a country whose standards are so different from ours.”
How two faced can you get? This was Tony Abbott’s withering critique, from opposition in 2011, of Labor’s ill-judged people-swap with Malaysia. The Coalition at the time refused to support the Malaysian deal, arguing – as did The Age – that the rights of asylum seekers could not be protected. Those very same doubts apply in at least equal measure to Cambodia.
Immigration Minister Scott Morrison, having initially refused to acknowledge the negotiations with Cambodia with his regrettable contempt for public information, has now made a risible attempt to dress up this deal as a sign of that country’s progress. But, politically, the country is moribund. Prime Minister Hun Sen has preserved his grip on power for more than two decades by intimidation and repression.
Australia to strike a deal that promises Cambodia an additional $40 million in aid over four years, to accept refugees whom Australia itself has refused to accept, smacks of exploitation.
Offshore processing of refugee applicants in Nauru and Papua New Guinea is an attempt to evade Australia’s international obligations; now, by paying to send refugees to Cambodia, the government is similarly attempting to buy its way out of the responsibility to resettle people found to be fleeing persecution.
It is extraordinary that, beyond the additional $40 million in aid, the government has entered into this deal with an apparent blank cheque, to pay for the costs of providing for refugees in Cambodia. Mr Morrison has conceded the cost is unknown.
There is no economic argument for what Morrison is doing. If 20,000 adult refugees were settled to become tax payers of this country at the lowest level $10-15k it would bring the government approx $300 mill or over $2 billion income over the next 5 years and that’s only one group of 20,000. What’s our reputation as a global citizen worth. Nothing it would appear to this government. Immigration,Climate,Security,Welfare,Education have become the most regressive policies in the Western World.
Cambodia refugee deal: Protests outside Australian embassy in Phnom Penh as Scott Morrison signs agreement
Updated
As few as four or five people could be sent from Nauru to Cambodia under a deal signed by Immigration Minister Scott Morrison in Phnom Penh today.The agreement will offer settlement of refugees on a voluntary basis, with the number of refugees accepted to be determined by Cambodia.
“In order to ensure an effective and positive implementation of the resettlement program, Cambodia and Australia have agreed to undertake an initial trial arrangement with a small group of refugees which will be followed by further resettlement in accordance with Cambodia’s capacity,” the statement said.
Australia will pay Cambodia $40 million in additional aid and also “bear the direct costs of the arrangement, including initial support to refugees, and relevant capacity building for Cambodia”.
Cambodians say country unable to look after its own
Riot police kept watch outside the Australian embassy in Phnom Penh as Cambodians protested against the agreement.Around 100 protesters gathered outside the embassy to protest against the deal, saying the poverty-stricken country was unable to look after its own people and should not be taking in Australia’s refugees.Refugee advocates said they feared locals would be upset if refugees were given money and were perceived to be better off than others in the community.
Cambodia: Fact File
- Cambodia has a population of around 15 million
- More than 96 per cent of them speak Khmer
- It is a democracy under a constitutional monarchy. King Norodom Sihamoni currently reigns, while Hun Sen is prime minister
- Suffered civil war under the Khmer Rouge, who sent 1.7 million Cambodians to their deaths in the ‘Killing Fields’
- 20 per cent of the population lives below the poverty line
- The country remains one of the poorest in Asia
- 37 per cent of children under the age of 5 suffer from chronic malnutrition
- More than half of the population is less than 25 years old
- More than half of the government’s money comes from international aid
There are also fears that the Australian funding will end up in the pockets of corrupt officials.
Mr Morrison earlier said there would be no cap placed on the number of refugees Cambodia would accept, but said it would only take those who voluntarily chose to go there.Human rights and aid groups working on the ground in Cambodia called the deal “shameful”, and said the country had a terrible record of protecting refugees.”It is shameful but it is also illegal,” said Virak Ou, president of Cambodia’s Centre for Human Rights.
“The Australian Government has an obligation to protect refugees and sending them Cambodia’s way is not how a responsible country protects refugees.”Cambodia is in no position to take refugees. We are a poor country, the health system is sub-par at most. I don’t know how the refugees will send their kids to school.”The Cambodian school system is rife with corruption … the access to education here is quite bad. So I don’t know what the Australian Government is thinking nor what they expect from
Scott Morrison will sign a refugee resettlement deal with Cambodia
- 2 hours ago September 24, 2014
IMMIGRATION Minister Scott Morrison will sign a controversial refugee resettlement deal with Cambodia at the end of the week.
But details of the agreement won’t be made public until after it is signed off in Phnom Penh on Friday.
The Abbott government only confirmed a deal had been reached after the Cambodian government announced Mr Morrison’s impending visit.
Under the agreement, asylum seekers who arrive in Australia by boat and are found to be refugees after being processed offshore on Nauru or Manus Island in Papua New Guinea could voluntary choose to be resettled in Cambodia.
They will have freedom of movement and work rights.
Minister for Immigration and Border Protection Scott Morrison, during Question Time in the House of Representatives. Picture: Gary Ramage Source: News Corp Australia
Mr Morrison, earlier in September, said the arrangement was not about “just putting people somewhere and looking the other way”. Labor is demanding the government release details of the agreement.
It was “completely unacceptable” that Australians were being forced to rely on Cambodia for news of an agreement the government was preparing to sign, opposition immigration spokesman Richard Marles said.
He asked how Cambodia was an acceptable location to send refugees when the coalition rejected a Gillard government proposal to resettle asylum seekers in Malaysia.
The government previously has defended the plan by saying Cambodia is a signatory to the UN Convention on Human Rights. However, the Greens and refugee groups have cited the country’s human rights record and poor economic status.
The Greens have vowed to vote against the “dirty deal” if and when the government seeks parliamentary approval for the agreement. As one of the poorest nations in the world, Cambodia struggled to look after its own citizens, let alone the refugees Australia wants to “dump” there, Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said.
Women and young girls especially would be at extreme risk of abuse and exploitation.
“The moment those young girls walk off a plane in Cambodia, their lives will be at risk,” she told reporters.
Only a Balaclava of a difference
Life expectancy in PNG is 66 and in Australia 84. Scott Morrison and Martin Bowles have insured two healthy young men Reza and Hamid one 23 and the other 24 would never achieve those expectancies of life. On battered to death the other allowed to contract blood poisoning. In Australia’s camp of death on Manus island PNG.
These deaths are warnings to the world no less than the beheading of the two journalists by ISIS in Syria and Iraq. One a threat to the USA and it’s allies the other a clear message that if you don’t stop taking boats to Australia this too can happen to you. The deaths on Manus have gained as much publicity as the beheading . All deaths tell the story that if you are captured you will be imprisoned and will be administered harsh treatment no matter who you are and no matter world opinion or world conventions. As far as the world is concerned we don’t give a f**k give it a go and see.
Any inquiries into deaths will be legally appealed. The appeals fully paid for and shut down by the Australian government.
No matter their denials Morrison and Bowles the parallels are clearly the same. Manus is the clear message to asylum seekers that death and mental illness are likely possibilities if you attempt to come to Australia we will capture you. Scott Morrison and Martin Bowles are responsible for everything that occurs at Manus. Just as Cardinal Pell’s trucking company defense fell on deaf ears it’s of no use to them either.
RIP Reza Barati and Hamid Kehazaei
ADOLF EICHMAN’S DEFENSE “JUST DOING MY JOB “
Scott Morrison the Minister for NO INFORMATION says AHRC allegations of self harm and sick children on Christmas Island are “sensational”. Yet his department head confirmed 128 recorded instances in the past 15 months. Martin Bowles said improvements had been made. I’m sure those improvements are more about information suppression and ridiculing attending doctors should they be found to reveal restricted information. International Health and Medical Services were explicitly told to withdraw figures showing children were suffering high levels of mental illness by the Immigration Department.
Scott Morrison who consistently refused to attend the AHRC inquiry is quite open to run it down as he is the report by nine major Christian Churches which labelled the detention of unaccompanied children in processing camps and centres as state sponsored child abuse.The church task force report contains remarkably strong language invoking the holocaust in its critique of Australia’s detention policy.
The Immigration Minister’s office says Scott Morrison hasn’t seen the final report but says claims of state-sponsored child abuse are shocking and offensive and categorically rejected by him. Morrison is embodiment of ministerial evil” We know that one doesn’t need to be fanatical, sadistic, or mentally ill to persecute unaccompanied children and asylum seekers in detention. It is enough to be a loyal follower eager to do one’s duty for an inhumane,insane government detention policy. Wasn’t this Adolf Eichman’s defense?
olddogthoughts 