157 Tamil asylum seekers detained illegally and denied procedural fairness, lawyers tell High Court
By Elizabeth Byrne
Photo: The asylum seekers were initially taken to the Cocos Islands before being transferred to Western Australia and then Nauru. (AAP: Brad Waugh)
The Australian Government's decision to detain 157 Tamil asylum seekers at sea for nearly a month was illegal, lawyers say.
The validity of the law to detain the group in June is under the spotlight at the High Court in Canberra.
The court was today told by lawyers representing the asylum seekers that the group was illegally detained and denied procedural fairness when they were not asked about their refugee status.
The group, which includes 50 children, were intercepted at sea and taken aboard the Australian Customs ship the Oceanic Protector.
The group had set out from Pondicherry in India after fleeing Sri Lanka.
A failed attempt to return the group to India saw them transferred to Nauru via the Cocos Islands and the Curtin Immigration Detention Centre in Western Australia.
Government lawyers told the court the authorities that detained the group were upholding migration laws.
The Government also defended the Maritime Powers Act used to detain the group.
Commonwealth Solicitor-General Justin Gleeson told the court the law which allowed the group's detention at sea was deliberately coercive because it needed to apply to law enforcement in many different circumstances beyond the Migration Act.
In one of the earlier directions hearings, High Court Justice Kenneth Hayne noted the Act seeks to apply the law beyond Australian territorial waters and raised issues not considered before.
The Human Rights Law Centre's Daniel Webb said the outcome could have serious implications for the Government's asylum seeker policies.
"In particular, the court will look at the Government's power to detain people at sea and then take them elsewhere and consider whether that's a power that needs to be exercised fairly; whether that's a power that needs to be exercised with due consideration for individual circumstances," he said.
Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said the decision to detain the asylum seekers on the high seas was cruel and absurd.
"What the Government is trying to do is to give themselves a licence to breach international law and to throw away all decency and basic common sense," she said
Australian Leader Serves an Unsportsmanlike Warning to Putin
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORNOCT. 14, 2014
President Vladimir V. Putin was the target of tough talk on Monday over the downing of a flight in Ukraine. Credit Vasily Maximov/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
MOSCOW — Could it be his charm or talent? Or the exaggeratedly macho image?
Whatever it is, there is something about the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, that seems to get under the skin of other world leaders, prompting them to say things they typically do not about other important figures, at least not aloud or in public.
On Monday in Australia, Prime Minister Tony Abbott became the latest in a long line when he told reporters that he planned to get in Mr. Putin’s face at a meeting of the Group of 20 economic forum in Brisbane next month over the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in eastern Ukraine, in which 28 Australian citizens were killed.
“I’m going to shirt-front Mr. Putin,” Mr. Abbott told reporters, using a term that in Australian football means charging an opponent to knock him down and in rugby refers to grabbing an opponent’s shirt or collar. “I am going to be saying to Mr. Putin: ‘Australians were murdered. They were murdered by Russian-backed rebels using Russian-supplied equipment. We are very unhappy about this.’”
VIDEO - Australian Premier [OOPS, Prime Minister] Talks Tough
Prime Minister Tony Abbott of Australia pulled back from a vow to “shirt front” President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia but promised a “robust conversation” over the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 downing.
Publish Date October 14, 2014. Photo by Rick Rycroft/Associated Press.
Mr. Abbott eased back a bit on Tuesday after criticism in the Australian news media and from a senator from Tasmania, Jaqui Lambie, who said the Australian leader was “just full of testosterone and bad manners.” A Russian Embassy official called Mr. Abbott’s remarks “immature.”
When it comes to dealing with Mr. Putin, of course, a little testosterone would hardly seem to hurt. The Russian leader, who has a black belt in judo, is well known for his machismo, as well as for showing it off. Among the iconic images of him are photographs of him bare-chested, including one riding a horse and another fishing. There are other photos of him engaged in an array of physical endeavors — scuba diving, for example, and flying a motorized hang glider.
Mr. Abbott is hardly the only leader to offer sharp-tongued comments about Mr. Putin. In a call with President Obama this year, the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, reportedly said that Mr. Putin appeared to be “in another world.”
President George W. Bush famously said he had looked Mr. Putin in the eye during their first meeting in 2001 and gotten “a sense of his soul .. http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/06/20010618.html,” calling him “trustworthy,” only to complain later that dealing with Mr. Putin was “like arguing with an eighth grader with his facts wrong.”
As secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton was reported to privately mock Mr. Putin’s legs-spread-wide posture. And in a speech in Las Vegas on Monday night, Mrs. Clinton said, “I see a very coldblooded, calculated former K.G.B. agent who is determined to not only enrich himself and his closest colleagues but also to try to revive Russia’s influence around its border.”
Since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March, Mr. Putin has made only a few appearances at major international events, including a World War II commemoration in Normandy in June, where he got a polite, if hardly warm, reception.
Another test of Mr. Putin’s standing among his international colleagues will come on Thursday, when he is set to attend a meeting of European and Asian leaders in Milan.
As for the encounter next month with Mr. Abbott in Brisbane, although the Russian Embassy in Australia in its response this week noted Mr. Putin’s judo expertise, there are signs that the Russian president may be losing some of his mojo.
After a hike in Siberia on his 62nd birthday this month, Mr. Putin said he was in pain. “I did nearly nine kilometers mountain trekking,” a bit over five miles, he said two days later. “And everything aches ever since.”
Australian-born baby denied refugee protection visa
Date 15.10.2014
An 11-month-old baby born in Australia to asylum-seeker parents has been denied a refugee visa by the country's Federal Court. The ruling throws further light on Canberra's hardline and controversial immigration policy.
Baby Ferouz Myuddin was born prematurely in hospital in the eastern Australian city of Brisbane last year. His mother, from Myanmar's persecuted Rohingya minority, was transfered there from a detention center on the Pacific state of Nauru because of health concerns.
The Australian government initially rejected the baby's refugee application, on the grounds he was an unauthorized maritime arrival, like his parents. Lawyers challenged that ruling, disputing that anyone born in an Australian hospital could have arrived by sea.
But their challenge was unsuccessful. On Wednesday, Federal Court judge Michael Jarrett agreed with the government's course of action, ruling that Ferouz had entered Australia by sea - despite the circumstances of his birth.
"On the applicant's birth he entered Australia and became an 'unlawful non-citizen', given that neither of his parents held a valid visa," Jarrett said in his judgment in Brisbane. "The application is therefore, in my view, an 'unauthorized maritime arrival'...and his application for a protection visa was invalid."
Ferouz was one of around 100 babies born in similar circumstances represented by the Maurice Blackburn Lawyers firm in Australia, meaning his case was keenly observed as a possible precedent.
Lawyers for Ferouz's parents said the family was "distressed" but respected the decision of the court.
"All they have continued to seek for Ferouz is a fair go: Ferouz was born in Brisbane and has a Queensland birth certificate, and we remain firmly of the view that on that basis, he should have the right to seek protection in Australia," said Murray Watt from the law firm Maurice Blackburn.
"Unfortunately, the court's decision means that Ferouz is not eligible to apply for a Protection Visa and he and his family are now able to be transfered to detention on Nauru," Watt said. "Amendments to the Migration Act, which are currently before Federal Parliament, would result in the transfer of all babies to Nauru, despite being born on Australian soil."
The group's lawyers say their clients were falsely imprisoned on the ship. The government says the detention was legal, as was a plan to send them back to India.
At the heart of the case is whether Australia has the power to remove asylum seekers from its contiguous zone, just outside territorial waters, and send them to other countries.
Refugees in these camps do not qualify for temporary Australian visas and instead are offered resettlement in these countries. Since December, only one boat of asylum seekers is known to have reached the Australian mainland - compared to almost daily arrivals under the previous Labor administration.
The current government, led by conservative Prime Minister Tony Abbott of the Liberal Party, was elected in part on the promise that it would not allow more boats carrying asylum seekers to land in Australia. The government says it wants a regional solution to the issue of asylum seekers, and asserts that many of those trying to reach its shores are economic migrants.
jr/msh (dpa, AFP)
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More asylum-seekers died trying to reach Yemen in 2014, than 3 past years combined – UN
Those who arrive in Yemen by sea are taken to reception centres, like this one at Bab-el-Mandeb, where they are registered. UNHCR photo
17 October 2014 – More migrants and asylum-seekers are dying in attempts to get to Yemen, mainly from the Horn of Africa, this year than in the last three years combined, the UN refugee agency reported today.
In the latest tragic incident on 2 October, 64 migrants and three crew members died when their vessel, sailing from Somalia, sunk in the Gulf of Aden, according to a press release .. http://www.unhcr.org/544103b06.html .. from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR .. http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/home).
October’s shipwreck was the largest single loss of life this year, and follows accidents in June, when 62 people died; March, when 44 people lost their lives; and in April, with 12 people dead. The total number of dead in 2014 is currently 215, exceeding the combined total for 2011, 2012 and 2013 of 179.
These deaths come amidst a dramatic increase in the number of new arrivals to Yemen by boat in September. At 12,768, it marks the single biggest month for arrivals since current records began to be kept in 2002. Most of the migrants are Somalis, Ethiopians and Eritreans who face ghoulish conditions on their journey.
“There have been frequent reports of mistreatment, abuse, rape and torture and the increasingly cruel measures being adopted by smuggling rings seem to account for the increase in deaths at sea,” UNHCR spokesperson William Spindler told journalists at a Geneva briefing today.
Boats crossing to Yemen are often perilously overcrowded, and smugglers have reportedly thrown passengers overboard to prevent capsizing or avoid detection. Search-and-rescue officials say the practice has resulted in hundreds of undocumented casualties in recent years.
Asylum-seekers arriving across the Yemeni coast at the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden are often dehydrated and exhausted. Stationed at three coastal transit centres, UNHCR and its partners provide first aid and food to those identified in a dire situation, before transporting them to the nearest reception centre, where they go through the initial registration process conducted by the Danish Refugee Council on behalf of UNHCR.
Somali arrivals receive ‘prima facie’ – accepted until proven otherwise – refugee status from the Government of Yemen, while non-Somalis who express an interest in seeking asylum are given attestation letters to present at the UNHCR offices in Sana’a or Aden and begin the refugee status determination process.
Despite the commitment and the continuing work of the Yemeni Government and others, it is clear that those ongoing efforts alone could not hope to avoid such loss of life.
“The surge can also be attributed to a decreasing level of cooperation between the countries in the region to better manage migratory movements,” Spindler said.
Factors behind this migrant surge are believed to include ongoing drought in South-Central Somalia, as well as the combined effects of conflict, insecurity, and lack of livelihood opportunities in countries of origin.
Therefore, “We also call on countries of origin, transit and destination in the region to step up their cooperation in managing the flows of migration. At the same time they must pay due attention to the protection needs of refugees, asylum-seekers and other vulnerable groups such as women and minors,” said Spindler.
This kind of regional cooperation was a central idea behind a Regional Conference on Asylum and Migration organized by the Government of Yemen with support from UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration in November 2013 and it lay at the heart of the Sana’a Declaration adopted at the Conference.
Yemen is the only country in the Arabian Peninsula that is signatory to the 1951 refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol. It currently hosts 246,000 refugees, including over 230,000 Somalis and smaller numbers of Ethiopians, Eritreans, Iraqis and Syrians.
Yemen also hosted more than 334,000 internally displaced persons, either forced from their homes as a result of recent conflicts or living in longer-term displacement.
Time to tell the truth before I'm gagged: Australia's detention centres ruin lives
This insider’s account of the devastating treatment of asylum-seekers on Nauru and Manus will be illegal from 1 July under the Border Force Act
Asylum seekers housed in the Manus Island detention centre in Papua New Guinea. Photograph: Eoin Blackwell/AAP
Ryan Essex
Monday 29 June 2015 18.08 EDT .. Comments 754 .. Last modified on Tuesday 30 June 2015 05.09 EDT
Having worked as a counsellor in immigration detention for several years, for contractor International Health and Medical Services (IHMS), any discussions surrounding my former place of employment could very well be illegal after Wednesday. This is because of the secrecy provision in the Border Force Act .. http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/jun/20/australian-doctors-call-for-legal-right-to-speak-about-asylum-seeker-health-risks , a disturbing piece of legislation which is about to become law and is likely to have far-reaching consequences.
Under this legislation it is a criminal offence, punishable by up to two years’ imprisonment, for anyone who works in, or has previously worked in immigration detention to “make a record of or disclose” information regarding their employment. There are a number of things that need to be said before this somewhat modest piece of dissent could put me in front of a judge.
So now, fortunately, I can still discuss the damage that I have seen first-hand in immigration detention. The damage that has been done to men, women and children. The families I have seen arbitrarily separated. Asylum seekers whose healthcare needs have been subverted and neglected, as they did not align with the immigration department’s goals.
There was never a clear position description for a counsellor, so you often found yourself conducting any number of clinical tasks – whether it be more orthodox work or dealing with things that had become commonplace in immigration detention, such as serious self-harm and protests. You can engage in these things naively, at least for a short time, until it becomes clearer that you are balancing between complicity and advocacy in a system where it is often more productive to engage with red tape and bureaucracy.
Now I am rarely surprised when there is a cover-up or abuse. I have witnessed the secrecy, authoritarianism and hypocrisy first-hand. I have seen people push over fences with opportunities to escape, only to return, as they would not be able to survive in the outback.
I have seen the damage Nauru .. http://www.theguardian.com/world/nauru .. and Manus have done; sending psychotic people, broken and defeated to Villawood after all options were exhausted offshore. I could tell you about the self-harm I have seen and I should put this on record one more time, as it may be the last, that immigration detention has a devastating and long-lasting impact on mental health.
But the overwhelming majority of the people I have met in immigration detention are patient and resilient – who would have thought?
" The fact that speaking out may now be illegal shows just how much there is to hide "
With headlines that appear to be getting more and more shocking as the weeks go by, this is one area which demands transparency and oversight. This would not aid people smugglers, nor would it encourage people to “jump on a boat”. It would provide basic protections for an already vulnerable group. When women and children are allegedly being sexually abused and there are epidemic levels of self-harm, it is not a rational response to make a secretive system more secretive and to attempt to silence those who raise legitimate concerns.
This is unfortunately what immigration detention has become, an anomaly in today’s society. While other institutions and policies have evolved, this remains a system in which we are happy to flirt with the idea of sending health professionals to jail for speaking of their experiences. In a country that is now talking about mental health, we are happy to disregard epidemic levels of self-harm and suicide as “manipulative” or “attention seeking”. And in a country where there is universal support for the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse, we are happy to remain wilfully ignorant of it in immigration detention.
Whatever side of the asylum seeker debate you stand on, the Border Force Act should alarm you. This legislation has implications beyond clinicians working in immigration detention. It raises questions about the entire medical profession, complicity, and their stance on ethical and human rights issues. In recent weeks a number of medical groups have rightly raised concerns about this legislation, calling for health professionals to be allowed to speak out about the conditions in detention adding to their long opposition to mandatory detention. In response to this, a spokeswoman for the immigration minister has reminded us .. http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/jun/20/australian-doctors-call-for-legal-right-to-speak-about-asylum-seeker-health-risks .. that there are appropriate mechanisms and protections for those reporting misconduct and “maladministration”.
This “maladministration” has been discussed, protested about and critiqued by health professionals, academics, lawyers and human rights experts for more than 20 years. Democracy can only function properly with accountability and transparency. I only hope many more individuals come forward after 1 July and simply speak about what they have seen. The fact this may now be illegal and seen as “sensational” shows just how much there is to hide.
Ryan Essex is a PhD student at the University of Sydney, examining healthcare, ethics and immigration detention
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