It is important that a country is able to hold its head up high in international companies. This report of the UN Committee Against Torture shows Australia can only hold up its head in shame. Conditions on Manus Island and Nauru – the island states to which Australia sends asylum seekers – amount to “cruel, inhuman, and unlawful” punishment, the UN Committee Against Torture has told the Australian government, while new laws to make it easier to forcibly return asylum seekers to their homeland could breach the Convention Against Torture. Australia appeared before the UN committee in Geneva on Monday, where the committee heard that a migration amendment bill that is before the Senate would make it easier for Australia to send people back to torture, in breach of international law. Australia ratified the torture convention in 1989, and is legally bound by it. The convention not only outlaws torture, but prohibits forcibly sending someone to a place where they could be tortured. Australia has a statutory “complementary protection” obligation for asylum seekers who fall outside the refugees convention but who are still fleeing persecution in their home country. The migration amendment (protection and other measures) bill before the Senate would raise the threshold for complementary protection from a “real chance” of persecution to “more likely than not”.
Posted on: Tue, 11 Nov 2014 10:21:14 +0000
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