Jakarta Globe, January 22, 2014
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| 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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