dreamer_easy: (refugees)
Chip in to take Peter Dutton's cruelty to court #Season4Justice: Mums 4 Refugees and Grandmothers against Detention of Refugee Children NSW fundraiser for the National Justice Project, who provide urgent pro bono legal help to people on Nauru and Manus.

Broken Men in Paradise (New York Times, 9 December 2016). "The world's refugee crisis knows no more sinister exercise in cruelty than Australia's island prisons."

Norway pension fund told to get out of Australian offshore detention business (SMH, 27 November 2016) "The Australia Institute claims the pension fund's investment in Ferrovial is at odds with its commitment to high ethical standards and is not widely known in Norway." (Here's their press release.)

Existence of 'pivotal' letter from Scott Morrison on boat turnbacks revealed (GA, 28 November 2016): "Document sought in FoI case purports to authorise possibly unlawful return of asylum seekers to Indonesia."

Nauru blocking release of information about asylum seekers, court documents show (GA, 30 November 2016): "Documents filed by the immigration department to the Administrative Appeal Tribunal cite Nauru's objection as a key reason to block a freedom of information request."

'We are still suffering': detainees on Manus and Nauru speak – in pictures (GA, 7 December 2016)
dreamer_easy: (refugees)
Hazara asylum seeker says he is being sent back to Afghanistan (GA, 23 April 2016)

Desperate refugees arrested trying to return to Manus Island centre (SMH, 22 April 2016) "Three refugees who have left Manus Island to try and rebuild their lives in Lae after being granted refugee status have returned to the island, saying they feel safer in the transit centre."

Catching up on links:

Asylum seekers fear forced repatriations as Julie Bishop continues talks with Iran's Foreign Minister (ABC, 16 March 2016) | Iran would welcome back asylum seekers 'with pride', Iranian Foreign Minister says (ABC, 16 March 2016) Fortunately, the Minister said that it would only accept "voluntary" returnees. Unfortunately, that means the only way to get rid of them is to keep up the torture.

Taliban tortures Abbott government deportee (The Saturday Paper, 4 October 2014) | Hazara asylum seeker to be forcibly deported from Australia to Afghanistan (GA, 14 March 2016) | Australia’s folly returns Afghan Hazaras to torture and death (The Conversation, 15 October 2014) | Afghan minister for refugees and repatriation warns against forced returns (Kabulblogs, 28 February 2015)

Refugee: 'I fear that I will die' in Cambodia (SMH, 20 March 2016) (video)

Federal Government repatriates former military interpreter to Iraq, despite fears his life is in danger (ABC, 10 November 2015)

Asylum seekers could be forced into warzones under laws proposed by Federal Government, human rights lawyer David Manne warns (ABC, 21 October 2015)

633 asylum seekers turned back under Sovereign Border in last 18 months, Peter Dutton confirms (ABC, 6 August 2015) The twenty boats included 46 Vietnamese asylum seekers who were sent back to the country they were fleeing after being secretly held at sea for a month. Another must have been the boat that made it within 200 metres of Christmas Island before being towed back out to sea. (At least they made it back to Indonesia.) Another would have been the boat with 65 asylum seekers from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Myanmar, includng a pregnant woman. More recently (March 2016) a boat containing Bangladeshi asylum seekers was turned around.

btw: Turnbacks under way when Indonesian waters breached, FOI documents reveal (GA, 11 March 2016). "Disclosure of previously blanked-out details from review of six Australian breaches of Indonesian territory puts end to two years of speculation."

Asylum seekers should not be sent back to Sri Lanka yet, say religious leaders (GA, 8 June 2015) | AFP providing support to Sri Lankan government department accused of torture (ABC, 4 August 2015)

Refused asylum seekers face personal data disclosure by immigration department (GA, 13 April 2015)

ETA:

Detention of 157 Tamil asylum seekers on board ship ruled lawful (GA, 28 January 2015) Our obligations still apply despite High Court win (SMH, 19 January 2016). "The High Court decision on the detention of Tamil asylum seekers at sea turned on a technical reading of statutory provisions, not an assessment of Australia's international refugee and human rights obligations." | Australia's high court questions legality of asylum seeker boat turnbacks (GA, 29 January 2016)

(Behind a paywall, but you get the gist:) Sinhalese asylum seekers' on-water claims accepted by UN (The Saturday Paper, 31 January 2015) "Asylum seekers sent back to Sri Lanka after Scott Morrison’s ‘on-water’ interviewing have been confirmed as refugees by the UNHCR."

Government defends decision to send four men back to Sri Lanka whose boat was intercepted as part of 'people smuggling venture' (ABC, 20 February 2015)
dreamer_easy: (refugees)
Remaining two refugees in Cambodia rue leaving Nauru (SMH, 13 March 2016) | Tracking down two refugees in Cambodia (SMH, 19 March 2016) | Greens refer $55 million refugee resettlement deal with Cambodia to the Auditor General (SMH, 13 March 2016). Sickness, poverty, misery - and Australian lies.

Asylum seeker who suffered heart attack on Manus to be taken to Australia (GA, 23 March 2016) | Manus detainee flown off island for medical treatment after collapsing (ABC, 23 March 2016). Let him stay.

Detainees on Nauru continue their rolling protests, after 1,000 days plus in detention. (Huffington Post, 23 March 2016)

Figures from The Weekend Australian (19-20 March, 2016): "Right now, a record 13,679 people are registered with the UNHCR in Indonesia to go through the formal refugee resettlement process - compared to 8332 in 2013. In 2015, the UNHCR submitted close to 1000 cases to resettlement countries but just 600 departed." The article, "Time for Asia to shoulder the burden of asylum settlement", claims that asylum seekers who reached Indonesia would leave there at once for Australia by boat, but are now registering with the UNHCR instead. The result: "... asylum-seekers in Indonesia are now waiting up to two years for their first formal interview, with little means of support... Unless regional nations showed a willingness to pitch in, and Australia overturned its refusal to accept even UNHCR-referred refugees who arrived in Indonesia after 2014, that situation would only deteriorate, [UNHCR Indonesia representative] Mr Vargas warned." (my emphasis) We've closed the "queue"? No wonder people are still getting on boats.

Australia signs landmark regional agreement to tackle people smuggling (GA, 24 March 2016): the non-binding deal, part of the forty-five nation Bali Process, recommends that member states "explore potential temporary protection and local-stay arrangements for asylum seekers and refugees" and "explore alternatives to detention for vulnerable groups".

Immigration Department broke law by publishing asylum seekers' private details (SMH, 14 November 2015) | Asylum seeker data breach case bound for high court after Peter Dutton appeals (GA, 21 March 2016)
dreamer_easy: (refugees)
This week, the High Court gave the go-ahead to a legal challenge to offshore processing brought by the Human Rights Law Centre, which argued that the government does not have the legal authority to detain people overseas or to pay for their detention. The government and the opposition hastened to pass legislation closing the "loophole". (Amongst others, independent Senator Andrew Wilkie was not impressed, describing Australia's refugee regime as a "crime against humanity".) The challenge will go ahead nonetheless.

Almost a third of the asylum seekers on Manus Island are bringing a legal challenge against their detention, arguing that it violates Papua New Guinea's Constitution. (ABC, 23 June)

Also last week, about forty asylum seekers were transferred to Nauru, including a second baby, despite a doctor's "grave concern" for the first baby to be sent, and warnings from Save the Children, who are providing welfare at the detention centre.

tbh this is weird behaviour from a government obsessively sensitive about the truth leaking out of the detention centres: for example, the Border Force Act, which is about to come into effect, threatens two years' jail for doctors who publicly describe detainees' physical and mental condition, in direct conflict with the AMA's Code of Conduct. Surely Abbot and co. understand the disastrous PR potential of dead babies?

The Senate's inquiry into detention on Nauru continues, with testimony that guards paid for, and videotaped, sex with detainees, amongst other allegations.

Eight Nauru guards suspended from work after attending an Islamophobic rally have now be reinstated.

The Senate will hold an inquiry into the government's cash payments to people smugglers to return their passengers to Indonesia. This was apparently the first time smugglers have been bribed to take asylum seekers back. Officials from that country fear the payments will revive the dwindling business.

Iran may agree to allow Australia to return asylum seekers to the country they fled.
dreamer_easy: (refugees)
The big news of the last couple of weeks is that both the previous Labor and the current Coalition governments have paid bribes to people smugglers. In the Coalition's case, those bribes were paid to smugglers to take their passengers back to Indonesia in two boats provided by Australia - a "suicide mission".

The bribes, totalling $US31,000, may have broken Australian law. The asylum seeker vessel was stopped in international waters.

(The government has refused to deny the allegations or to hand over relevant documents to the Senate. Both current Leader of the Opposition Bill Shorten and former PM Julia Gillard have refused to deny that smugglers were paid for intelligence under Labor governments.)

As well as encouraging the people smugglers in their business, the bribe endangered the asylum seekers aboard; when one vessel ran out of fuel, its passengers were moved to the other boat, which then crashed into a reef.

By contrast, in the face of the Rohingya crisis, Malaysia and Indonesia have said they will stop turning asylum seeker boats away.
dreamer_easy: (refugees)
Asylum seekers registered with UNHCR in Indonesia after June no longer eligible for resettlement in Australia, Scott Morrison says. Also, fewer places (450, down from 600) will be made available for the ten thousand asylum seekers and refugees currently in Indonesia, making the wait for resettlement here much longer. Exactly how this will keep desperate people off boats is not clear to me.

The aim of the policy change is purportedly to stop asylum seekers entering Indonesia rather than remaining in other countries which also do not accept asylum seekers. The head of the Refugee Council of Australia explained that "...the Government clearly did not understand what drove asylum seekers to go to Indonesia in the first place. 'Indonesia is less likely to implement some of the harshest policies against refugees that some other countries in the region implement... Now we're saying, first to Indonesia, and who knows what country will be next, we're not prepared to offer people resettlement through an organised process.'"

Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said: "This is the exact opposite of what the government should be doing. We should be working with our neighbours, accelerating refugee processing and increasing Australia’s intake from the region so that people are given a safe way to reach protection. That’s the only way we can save lives at sea while caring for refugees."

Sunday explainer: Refugees and the great legal run-around is a useful summary of the facts and figures.

Refugees set sail for detention centres gives a detailed overview of the situation for refugees in Indonesia. See also ‘Pretty bleak’: Australia’s closed door puts pressure on Indonesia’s own refugee policies.
dreamer_easy: (refugees)
Indonesia's president-elect Joko Widodo has told our PM it's unacceptable for the Australian navy to enter Indonesian waters when turning back asylum seeker boats. Immigration Minister Scott Morrison retorted that Indonesia has benefitted from the turnbacks, as they have stopped people-smuggling, which the haven't. Neither country mentioned the thousands of refugees and asylum seekers trapped in Indonesia.

Seven months after the attacks on asylum seekers at the Manus Island detention centre, 87 detainees still await medical treatment which cannot be provided at the camp, including a man with bullet fragments in his back. The delay in providing medical attention inside and outside the detention centre cost Hamid Khazaei his life. Conditions at the camp are filthy, contributing to detainee's poor health; skin infections are routine.

Gay asylum seekers at Manus who fled persecution in Iran fear resettlement in Papua New Guinea, where homosexuality can be punished with more than ten years in jail. They are also experiencing bullying within the camp.

Manus Island's local government has halted construction of new facilities at the detention centre and is threatening to close the centre unless the billion-dollar assistance package is renegotiated, citing issues such as the large difference in salaries for local and imported staff at the camp.

In September, hard drives were stolen from the Nauru detention centre's offices. Nothing had been done to secure the drives. The private information therein is potentially extremely dangerous to detainees, containing asylum seekers' case information and records of complaints against staff at the camp, including reports of physical and sexual assaults on children and women. The government alleges Save the Children workers fabricated the reports. Detainees were shown a video of Tony Abbott telling them they would not be settled in Australia; the subsequent outbreak of self-harm and suicide attempts were attributed by the government to coaching by STC.

The detention centre on Nauru lacks adequate water for washing and laundry due to a breakdown in equipment. (Thankfully, drinking water is supplied in bottles.) Requests by asylum seekers for basic necessities including clothing, mosquito nets, children's shoes, and sanitary napkins largely go unmet.

Nauru itself may shortly run out of money.
dreamer_easy: (refugees)
The Australian Navy has forced at least five asylum seeker boats back into to Indonesian waters, violating Indonesia's borders, a serious action which has understandably angered our neighbours and is the subject of a Navy inquiry (the results of which may not be made public, hey ho.) The forcing back of boats may be illegal under the Refugee Convention.

Two asylum seekers jumped from their towed boat into the sea in an apparent suicide attempt, but were rescued. Others have jumped into the water in protest. Reports of the Navy's treatment include warning shots being fired, asylum seekers being given only one meal a day, the abandoning of one boatload of asylum seekers in a lifeboat near the Indonesian coastline, and another in their own boat, which ran out of fuel and ran aground. A Sudanese asylum seeker stated that the Navy handcuffed asylum seekers, denied them water, and "called us inhuman words, like illegal refugees, monkeys from Africa." (AFAIK none of this will be the subject of an inquiry.)

This opinion piece does a great job of summing up the whole mess: No joke, navy captains' intent a critical issue for Australia. Another piece, Government secrecy and leaky asylum-seeker boats, describes the suspicion and distrust caused by the secrecy around the Navy's anti-refugee operations.
dreamer_easy: (snow kate)
On to Indonesia, our neighbour to the north, a country which does not allow refugees to settle and therefore is a source of many of the "boat people" trying to reach Australia. There's been tension all month between the two countries over our government's "turn back" policy.

First, though, the serious allegations of mistreatment and violence perpetrated on African asylum seekers by Royal Australian Navy personnel who towed their boat back to Indonesia. According to Indonesian police, ten of the asylum seekers required medical treatment, seven of them for severe burns on their hands. They told police that RAN personnel forced them to hold onto hot metal pipes from the ship's engine, after they insisted on being allowed to use the toilet. They also stated that Navy personnel kicked and punched asylum seekers.

The Australian military and government have dismissed the allegations outright, with PM Tony Abbott stating "These are just claims without any apparent facts to back them up", even after photos and videos of burns and bruises emerged in the media. However, the allegations come at the same time as the RAN investigates into connections between Navy members and a racist anti-immigration group, the Australian Defence League. (The Navy's response, that they have a strict social media policy and violations will be punished, indicates that racism is tolerated by the RAN as long as it's not on display to the public.)

The Indonesian police may be unable to proceed further because of questions over exactly where the alleged torture took place; they're communicating with the AFP in hopes of establishing this. Australia's government says it will send officials to cooperate with the Indonesian investigation "to ensure that these allegations are scotched". The UNHCR is attempting to corroborate the allegations.

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