As pressure mounts within the Coalition to help resettle the farmers, the UNHCR has cast doubt on whether South African farmers can be classified as refugees and granted protection under Australia’s humanitarian program.
“The UNHCR Regional Representation in Canberra has not received any queries from South African farmers seeking protection from Australia,” said UNHCR spokesperson Catherine Stubberfield.
“Under the 1951 Refugee Convention, a person must be outside their country of origin in order to claim asylum.”
In contrast, she said the hundreds of refugees on Manus Island and Nauru have sought protection “directly from Australia” and deserve the Government’s attention.
“Those who have been forcibly transferred to Papua New Guinea and Nauru under the ‘offshore processing’ arrangement should be Australia’s first priority after almost five years,” she said.
Tag: UNHCR
The end of her period as outcast is significant, not least because it reflects the end of the ascendancy of ideology over civility.
Social services minister joins Eric Abetz in urging religious focus as Muslim and Christian leaders raise concerns that it would foster discrimination
Human Rights Commissioner Gillian Triggs has been looking out for the welfare of others, it has been alleged.
Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has laid out damning evidence that suggests Professor Triggs has a long history of human rights. As recently as last week it is claimed she spoke out on behalf of a minority group.
If found guilty of human rights, Professor Triggs could be forced to step down from her role as Human Rights Commissioner.
Mr Dutton said he would not stand for such blatant human rights. “It is grossly inappropriate for someone in her position to be even considering, let alone speaking publically about the rights of others,” he said today.
“What I say to Ms Triggs is this: let us worry about your rights and other peoples’ rights; you just focus on doing what we say”.
The ‘humanitarian’ war furphy
This new rush to war not an intervention designed to meet humanitarian goals and objectives, writes Dr Adam Hughes Henry, but simply another bloody bombing campaign to protect strategic Western interests.
Yet the actions of IS, in terms of our contemporary world, are very far from unique and as grotesque as their crimes are, cannot possibly be considered the worst of the worst. There are examples of barbaric behaviour which continue to be exhibited by U.S.-UK allies all over the world.
Bombing from the sky is not a very useful humanitarian response. Current actions do not appear to have any such UN sanctioned legitimacy. Furthermore, there are no foreign troops on the ground to specifically defend these threatened ethnic populations, set up safe zones or sanctuaries and there is also absolutely no talk from nations like Australia of taking in any of the threatened groups as refugees as a matter of priority. As in Kosovo in 1999, the way to save civilians from the stated threat of ethnic cleansing is apparently to bomb the place. The bombing did not decrease atrocities, they actually helped to create and indeed initiate a new cycle of Serbian atrocities in reprisal to a relentless U.S. led NATO bombing.
In Syria, the so called humanitarian impulse centred on the Assad regime for strategic and political reasons, while the well-being civilian population of Syria was used to promote it one way or the other. anti-Assad regime forces were provided assistance and every encouragement by the U.S. and the UK; among these anti-Assad forces were supporters of groups such as al Qaeda and those that now pledge fanatical allegiance to IS.
The question must be asked: how can the new mission to Iraq, particularly one spearheaded by the U.S. and backed by regimes like Saudi Arabia (who routinely funds Jihadist terrorist groups) be based on any notion of universal humanitarian values?
The human rights abuses and atrocities of Western allies over the past 50 years have washed the ground with the blood of their faceless victims over and over again. Islamic State do not have anything approaching a unique monopoly over human rights abuses, terror or fanaticism — they are certainly not an unprecedented human evil.
This new rush to war is not an intervention designed to fulfil any specified humanitarian objectives and outcomes. Where are the safe zones, where is UNHCR, where are the troops and diplomacy designed to defend, protect and negotiate for the safety of civilians?
Such a mission would surely be very different to what we are seeing now.
The primary U.S. led mission in Iraq appears only to be a major bombing campaign against IS in support of strategic interests, with no clear statement of its expected timeframe or even a secondary option.
If war is really only the process of translating diplomacy into killing and death and Afghanistan, Libya and Syria are any indicators of what we are about to see unfold as we folly back to Iraq without as much as a second thought — the very worst is still to come.
The man makes it up as he goes along.” I can abuse my wife because I was nice to my dog last week.”
Scott Morrison’s arrogance is an affront to the United Nations Human Rights Council on which we are seeking to be a member. To suggest Australia’s humanitarian response in Iraq somehow excuses it from responsibility to asylum seekers held in detention is the height of disregard for any notion of Human Rights. Since when are human right’s an exchangeable commodity? The man’s a liability to the long standing reputation of this country.
I reject the allegations made by the High Commissioner and would be pleased to meet to discuss these matters as I do on a regular basis with the UNHCR.“The most flagrant abuse of human rights I am aware of is the beheading and crucifying of people in Syria and Iraq where Australia is seeking to relieve the humanitarian crisis.”
The new high commissioner Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein says:
Australia’s policy of offshore processing and its interception and turning back of vessels “is leading to a chain of human rights violations”.
These include “arbitrary detention and possible torture following return to home countries”.
“It could also lead to the resettlement of migrant in countries that are not adequately equipped”, a reference to plans to send to Cambodia refugees from Nauru.
The High Commissioner’s comments feed into the current debate about the medical conditions on Manus Island, which have been again defended by Immigration Minister Scott Morrison but are strongly criticised by medical experts.
New Matilda last week reported Richard Kidd, a co-founder Doctors for Refugees, predicting that “we’re going to see other very serious bad health outcomes and probably more deaths”.
Kidd said this was why the Australian Medical Association had been strongly advocating for an independent medical authority to oversee the provision of healthcare services to asylum seekers and refugees.
olddogthoughts 