Jesuit Refugee Service Director Fr
Sacha Bermudez-Goldman says the suspension of asylum claims from Sri Lankan and
Afghan refugees is a breach of Australia's international obligations, and a
severe blow for the hopes of those already in detention.
Last
Friday 9 April, the Australian government announced that effective immediately
Australia had suspended the processing of new asylum claims by Sri Lankan
nationals for a period of three months and for Afghan nationals for a period of
six months.
The
effect of that suspension is not that Australian border patrols will stop all
asylum seeker boats coming to Australia from Indonesia, Malaysia or Sri Lanka
and send them back to those countries. Rather, asylum seekers coming on those
boats will still be taken to Christmas Island where basic health and security
checks will be carried out. However, no
further consideration will be given to their applications for asylum while the
current processing freeze is in place.
Since
the announcement late last week, several refugee lawyers have already pointed
out that by singling out these two countries, this new policy breaches several
of Australia's international obligations under various human rights treaties,
including the non-discrimination provision of the 1951 Refugee Convention which
prevents discrimination on the basis of a refugee's country of origin, and the
International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial
Discrimination.
Further,
one of the major arguments behind the freeze is that the ‘evolving
circumstances' in Sri Lanka and Afghanistan seem to indicate that the political
situation in those two countries might be improving and therefore people from
these countries might in the future not be ‘genuinely in need of our
protection'. In other words, the
suspension in refugee status determination is based not on the fact that
conditions have already changed, but on the hopes that ‘further improvement and
stabilization in conditions' in those countries might take place in the future. And while this is certainly a highly
desirable outcome (though a very difficult one to predict based on the
political history of these two countries over the past twenty years), it does
not address the immediate protection needs of Afghani and Sri Lankan asylum seekers
who are genuinely in need of our protection now.
What
it does, in effect, is submit these asylum seekers to indefinite and arbitrary
detention once again, as there is nothing to prevent the processing freeze from
being extended if such practice is still deemed ‘necessary' at the end of the
current moratorium. In July 2008, the
Rudd government issued its key immigration values which were lauded, among
other things, for their more humane approach to detention. These values asserted that indefinite or
otherwise arbitrary detention was not acceptable, that people held in detention
would be treated fairly and reasonably within the law, and that holding asylum
seekers in immigration detention centres was only to be used as a last resort
and for the shortest period of time.
Unfortunately,
this new policy effectively revokes these values, and is already having a
profound effect not only on the asylum seekers arriving on Christmas Island
after the 9 April deadline, but also on those who have been detained there for
several months.
‘The
tension levels here have skyrocketed', said Sister of Mercy Joan Kelleher, a
member of the pastoral team which Jesuit Refugee Service-in collaboration with
the Sisters of Mercy, the Archdiocese of Perth and the Catholic Bishops'
Conference-brought to the island in mid-December of last year.
Sr
Joan, who spends her days visiting the detainees, listening to their stories
and providing pastoral support, said the announcement hit the island like a
shock wave.
‘People
who have already been here for six, seven or even ten months are now wondering
how this new policy is going to affect them. Will they also now have to wait
even longer for their claims to be determined? They are already tired and sick
with the waiting.'
Sr
Joan said it is not only the asylum seekers who have been affected, but also
the staff at the detention centres as well as those providing counselling and
other support services. ‘So much has already been asked of them and they are
justifiably feeling overwhelmed by the increased tensions.'
I
came back from Christmas Island last Thursday, before the announcement of the
new policy was made. During the week
that I was there, I could sense already a high level of anxiety and
apprehension in my conversations with different groups of detainees, especially
with those who had been on the island for many months and those whose initial
claims had been rejected and were now awaiting a review. I could also sense the tiredness and feeling
of being overwhelmed experienced by the detention staff which Joan talked
about. I was impressed with the care and
compassion that many of the staff showed to the asylum seekers, especially
because of the difficult situation in which they have been placed, with such
limited human resources as well as so few other services available on the
island.
Some
of the detainees, especially new arrivals who had only been on the island for a
couple of weeks, in fact commented on the good care they felt they were
receiving in the detention centre. One young Hazara man from Afghanistan said
to me, ‘After two weeks here, yesterday was the first time that I was able to
sleep for more than three hours. A few
months ago, I saw my brother killed right before my eyes, and since then, I
have not been able to sleep for long periods of time. But here, I feel safe for the first time in a
long time.'
Another
young Iraqi man recounted how while waiting for a boat to come to Australia, he
was detained in Indonesia and kept in a jail cell for six months. ‘Every day,
the guard would come once a day and would open the door of the cell to give me
a bit of food on a plate. Most days,
that was the only time that the cell door was opened. I felt like an animal in a cage. Here, at least I can move about the centre
and talk to other people.'
Unfortunately,
as time in detention turns from weeks into months (and possible now even longer
than a year), these seemingly ‘positive' early experiences are soon replaced by
a deep sense of despair, of being ‘in limbo', of not knowing how much longer
the wait will be, all the while sitting around without anything constructive to
do. The negative and long-lasting
effects on the mental health of people submitted to indefinite detention has
been well-documented both in Australia and around the world, and this raises
the question as to why the government would create a policy that further
damages the lives of people who have experienced so much trauma already.
Asylum
seekers come to Australia fleeing persecution in their home countries. Many are
also escaping abusive treatment in transit countries. The prospect of having to wait three or six
extra months in detention for their asylum cases to be considered might be
intended as a deterrent, but compared to the other ‘options' they face, this
will most likely still be the lesser of many other evils. But is that how we want the world to think of
Australia and our renewed approach to refugee protection, as the lesser among
many evils?
By Fr Sacha Bermudez-Goldman SJ,
Director of Jesuit Refugee Service. For more on
Jesuit Refugee Service in Australia, go to www.jrs.org.au.
For more on this issue, read Fr Andrew
Hamilton SJ's piece in Monday's Eureka Street.