2014 was the year of triumphant press conferences at which the Abbott government affirmed its determination to “stop the boats” and outlined its success at doing so. However, 2015 is likely to be much…
Australians should demand a more representative dialogue on matters of refugee protection, inclusive of asylum seekers’ voices.
AAP/Refugee Action Coalition
Australia has long shown disregard for international conventions surrounding refugees. It labels asylum seekers in detention on Manus Island as “transferees”, also frequently referring to those who arrive…
Asylum seekers with an existing mental health condition who receive negative outcomes during the application process are particularly vulnerable.
Barat Ali Batoor
After much controversy, the Senate passed the Maritime Powers Legislation Amendment (Resolving the Asylum Legacy Caseload) Bill 2014 late last week. One aspect of the law – the “fast track assessment…
Paediatricians says children’s trauma is compounded when they are placed in mandatory detention.
Australian Human Rights Commission/AAP
More than 80% of Australian paediatricians believe mandatory detention of asylum seeker children constitutes child abuse, according to survey results published today in the Medical Journal of Australia…
Hamid Kehazaei’s death shows asylum seekers Australia detains are excluded from the ethical principles on which medicine and our health system are based.
Refugee Action Coalition
The news that Hamid Kehazaei, a 24-year-old Iranian asylum seeker detained on Manus Island, has been diagnosed as brain dead following his transfer to the Mater Hospital in Brisbane is a tragedy. That…
Nauru is anything but a tropical paradise for the resettled refugees who were originally flown in as asylum seekers.
EPA/Rod Henshaw
As the government secretly flew 157 asylum seekers seized at sea to Nauru overnight on Friday, 50 men recognised as refugees and given “temporary protection” to settle on Nauru have issued a statement…
In previous cases, the High Court has held that asylum seekers detained on Christmas Island have a right to procedural fairness.
AAP/Scott Fisher
Later today, the High Court is due to hear a challenge to the screening and transfer of a boatload of Sri Lankan asylum seekers back to Sri Lankan authorities. Under international law, return of persons…
The Senate inquiry into the violence at the Manus Island detention centre in February has heard that a key contributing factor to the riots was the delay in processing asylum seekers’ claims.
AAP/Eoin Blackwell
It’s been a busy Refugee Week so far. The High Court dismissed a constitutional challenge to offshore processing of asylum seekers, while the federal Labor caucus rejected an internal motion calling for…
Whichever way you add up the sums, Australians pay far too high a price for the government’s refugee policy.
AAP/DIAC
At a cost of A$826.1 million in the 2014-15 federal budget, the processing and detention of around 2500 asylum seekers on Nauru and Manus Island is a scandalous waste of taxpayers’ money. The government’s…
The report into the Manus Island riots in which Iranian asylum seeker Reza Barati was killed raises critical questions about the long-term sustainability of offshore processing.
AAP/Dan Peled
The report on the issues leading up to and including the riots that took place in the Manus Island detention centre in February partially lifts the veil on the complex inner workings of offshore processing…
When asylum seekers are handed over to PNG’s Manus Island, Australia cannot ‘contract out’ its international legal responsibilities with them.
AAP/Department of Immigration
The Australian government cannot duck and weave and imply that events on Manus Island involving asylum seekers were lawless acts over which it had no control. A policy aimed at “stopping the boats” does…
Refugee protection should go beyond a legal obligation to asylum seekers and refugees.
AAP/DIAC
Defining “success” in refugee protection can be a tricky proposition. It could be a reduction in the number of people displaced worldwide, places made available for refugee resettlement or the number of…
The UN has criticised Australia’s housing and transfer of asylum seeker children in offshore processing facilities on Manus Island and Nauru.
AAP/Eoin Blackwell
Recent reports that three asylum seeker children have been transferred from Nauru back to Australia because of concerns about their health raises a more fundamental question that lies at the heart of Australia’s…
Both major political parties are so intent on ‘stopping the boats’ that they have lost sight of their obligations to protect people.
ROSSBACH/KREPP/AAP IMAGE
Like many other Australians, I am alarmed by the hardening policy positions on asylum seekers of both major political parties. And today, the Royal Australian College of Physicians (RACP), of which I am…
With immigration detention recommencing in Nauru, we must monitor the welfare of asylum seekers.
AAP image/Department of Immigration and Citizenship
The Houston Expert Panel on Asylum Seekers was set the task of reducing deaths of asylum seekers following the mounting loss of life on the seas between Indonesia and Australia. But it remained blind to…