Australia ignores UN demand to release refugees locked up for 5 years without trial

One year after the United Nations’ highest human rights tribunal ordered the release of 46 people detained indefinitely, the Australian government has snubbed the world body by refusing even to respond to the UN, let alone implement its findings.

According to Sydney University academic Professor Ben Saul, the detainees’ pro bono lawyer and an advisor to NGO Remedy Australia, “The UN has accepted that detention makes people mentally ill, destroys families, and is not necessary for security. Five of these refugees have even attempted suicide by hanging, electrocution, poisoning or slashing themselves, too traumatised to go on.”

“No one deserves to live like that, without hope, life ebbing away behind the razor wire. They should be released immediately.”

On 22 August 2013, the UN Human Rights Committee decided in the cases of FKAG et al. v Australia and MMM et al. v Australia that Australia should release 46 refugees, offer them rehabilitation and pay them compensation. Australia has failed to respond to the UN within the obligatory 180 days, let alone fix over 150 violations of international human rights law found by the UN.

Fleeing Sri Lanka, Kuwait and Burma, the complainants to the UN were all accepted as refugees after their arrival in Australia in 2009 and 2010, but have been held in indefinite detention ever since. They cannot return home due to dangers they face there, but Australia will not release them from detention due to doubts cast over them by ASIO. Not until 2013 were they each given a ‘summary of reasons’ for their continuing detention, but they are denied adequate means of challenging the accusations.

The UN found that after 4 to 5 years in detention these people have suffered “serious, irreversible psychological harm” and it identified over 150 violations of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, including inhuman and degrading treatment (article 7), arbitrary detention (article 9(1)) and denial of the right to challenge their detention (article 9(4)).
While a number have been released since the UN complaint was lodged, nearly 40 remain in detention, with no sign of ever getting out.

“Indefinite detention of refugees is the very worst manifestation of Australia’s immigration detention regime. The UN has agreed the detention of these people is illegal”, says Professor Saul.

“Only by exposing ASIO’s allegations to open examination can their truth be tested. Allegations may be false, informants may bear grudges, conduct may have innocent explanations, and intelligence may be misinterpreted. No reasonable Australian can have blind faith in ASIO.”

The UN decision also requires Australia to “review its Migration legislation to ensure its conformity” with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The Covenant, an international treaty which Australia is legally bound to uphold, requires that detention be based on evidence, reviewable by the courts, used only as a last resort, and limited to reasonably short periods when absolutely necessary.

“Otherwise, our hard-won liberties dissolve into the muck of doing whatever it takes.”

“Australia should be protected from serious foreign security threats, but the current system goes further than is necessary to protect security, while denying basic procedural fairness”, says Professor Saul. “National security cannot be allowed to trample everything else.”

“Other liberal democracies do it differently and are no less safe. Effective alternative measures include prosecution, surveillance, reporting to police and community residency orders”.

Further information:

• The FKAG and MMM cases summarised:
http://remedy.org.au/cases/13/ & http://remedy.org.au/cases/18/

• Backgrounder on Remedy Australia:
http://remedy.org.au/reports/Remedy_backgrounder.pdf

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