Friday, August 01, 2014

When it comes to persecution, we've given Sri Lanka plenty of help...

Waltzing Matilda. They played it to welcome Scott Morrison, the Australian immigration minister, who was visiting to launch two patrol boats donated by the Australian government. A photo of the moment, tweeted by journalist Jason Koutsoukis, showed Morrison sitting alongside president Mahinda Rajapaksa and his brother, defence minister Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

Perhaps it didn't worry Morrison that there are growing calls to prosecute Gotabaya Rajapaksa for war crimes, because of his actions in 2009 during the Sri Lankan civil war. Australia has been aware of Sri Lanka's breaches of human rights for some time.

Australia is now closer to the regime than ever, because of their assistance in implementing Morrison's tough border protection strategy. As Emily Howie, the director of advocacy and research at the Melbourne-based Human Rights Law Centre, reported in 2013, “the Australian government is actively funding and supporting Sri Lanka to undertake these interceptions [of asylum seekers].”

Her report was based on interviews she gathered in Sri Lanka with people who wanted to leave and were stopped, interrogated and often tortured. Howie wrote in The Conversation that arbitrary detention, beatings and torture are routinely meted out to those in custody, Tamil and Sinhalese, with Canberra's knowledge. Full story...

Related posts:
  1. Australia returns asylum seekers to Sri Lanka: what happens next?
  2. The life and awful death of a Tamil asylum seeker in Australia...
  3. I was tortured in Sri Lanka for harbouring Tamils...
  4. Australian silence on human rights is our gift to Sri Lanka...
  5. David Cameron challenged to justify arms sale to Sri Lanka...
  6. Double standard: UK exports arms to Sri Lanka despite widespread rights...
  7. Britain's shameful complicity in Sri Lanka's torture...
  8. Hundreds of Tamil refugees in Britain sent back to Sri Lanka to face torture...

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