Tuesday, October 02, 2012

Australia pressures Tamil refugees to return to Sri Lanka...

The Australian Labor government has hailed the so-called voluntary return of 48 asylum seekers to Sri Lanka as a victory for its revival of the “Pacific Solution”, involving the indefinite detention of refugees on remote Pacific islands.

Two groups of asylum seekers have been flown back to Sri Lanka in the past week, after reportedly choosing this over incarceration for many years on Nauru or Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island. Vulnerable people are being pushed back to Sri Lanka despite clear evidence that asylum seekers, particularly Tamils, are in grave danger of persecution and torture.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s government is blatantly violating refugees’ basic legal and democratic rights, including those enshrined in the international Refugee Convention. Immigration Minister Chris Bowen openly stated that the government hoped that many more refugees would return to the countries they fled, and that asylum seekers would soon stop trying to sail to Australia altogether. “This government is determined to break the people smuggling trade and stop people getting on those dangerous boats,” he declared.

Contrary to the government’s claim that it is acting to “save lives” by deterring boat voyages, the entire thrust of the brutal new refugee regime is to endanger their lives and well being. Full story...

Related posts:
  1. Britain's shameful complicity in Sri Lanka's torture...
  2. UK deports 60 Tamils to Sri Lanka to face torture...
  3. Hundreds of Tamil refugees in Britain sent back to Sri Lanka to face torture...
  4. In post-war Sri Lanka, one person disappears every five days...
  5. Britain kicks out 36 Tamil asylum seekers back to Sri Lanka...
  6. UN probe demanded after Tamil deaths in Sri Lanka prison...
  7. Sri Lanka's killing fields 2. Unpunished war crimes. (Graphic)
  8. Sri Lanka's killing fields (Graphic)
  9. Sri Lanka: A nightmare for Tamils...

No comments:

Post a Comment