Turned away

By Paul Dobbyn

(April 14, Melbourne, Sri Lanka Guardian) Australia’s commitment to fairness and humanity has been betrayed by the Federal Government's decision to suspend processing any new claims by asylum seekers from Sri Lanka and Afghanistan, St Vincent de Paul Society national council chief executive officer Dr John Falzon said.

Dr Falzon said society members were "deeply saddened to see both sides of politics trying to outdo each other in a tragic display of thinly veiled racism".

The Federal Government recently announced any new claims from Sri Lankan and Afghanistan asylum seekers would be suspended for three and six months respectively.

Asylum seekers arriving in Australia by boat are primarily Hazaras from Afghanistan, an indigenous minority who have been fleeing the country since 1988-89 and Tamils escaping from Sri Lanka since the end of the civil war between Government forces and Tamil fighters in May last year.

The Federal Government said a key reason for its latest decision was the improved security situation in Afghanistan and Sri Lanka.

A spokesman for Brisbane's Sri Lankan Catholic community, Shanthie Goonetilleke, said this seemed true in Sri Lanka's case with evidence that life was returning to normal for Tamils there.

However, Edmund Rice Centre (ERC) spokesperson Dr John Sweeney said the situations in both countries continued to be "very dangerous for specific groups of people", also noting that Australia had already "done harm to asylum seekers in the past by convincing them it was safe to return when it was not".

The ERC and St Vincent de Paul Society were among several Catholic migrant advocacy groups to speak out on the Government's latest policy changes.

Brisbane archdiocese's Catholic Justice and Peace Commission (CJPC) executive officer Peter Arndt said the "blanket suspension of processing claims from Sri Lankans and Afghanis does not treat people as human beings with personal stories and experiences but as bureaucratic categories devoid of any human dignity".

Dr Falzon said the Government's policy reversal on asylum seekers was "a far cry from the values of compassion and social justice espoused by this Government at the beginning of its term".

"We, along with all people of good-will in Australia, are angered at the spectacle of politics being played with people's lives," he said.

"In his excellent 2006 essay, 'Faith in Politics', (Prime Minister) Mr (Kevin) Rudd placed himself on 'the side of the marginalised, the vulnerable and the oppressed'.

"We call on him to revisit and rescind this policy decision on the strength of this conviction."

Dr Sweeney said the Government's decision to suspend investigation of asylum seekers' claims must not now be used as an excuse to prolong their detention.

"Suspension of processing must be accompanied by release from detention for those whose identity, health and security checks have been completed," he said.

"It is of vital importance that the Government now live up to its own principles. These include that 'a non-citizen must only be detained in a detention centre as a measure of last resort and for the shortest practicable time'."

Dr Sweeney cited an ERC documentary A Well-Founded Fear which detailed how some asylum seekers were killed, lost family members or were now living in hiding after being sent back to their home countries by the Australian Government with the assurance that they would be safe.

Mr Goonetilleke said reports indicated that the lot of Tamils in Sri Lanka was improving.

"A national Australian media outlet, for example, has just reported such promising signs as the resettlement of 193,607 IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons) and the recruitment of several thousand Tamil-speaking police constables to serve in Tamil-majority areas.

"Catholic Bishop of Jaffna, Thomas Sund-ranayagam (an ethnic Tamil), wrote in January: 'Jaffna (a Tamil region in Sri Lanka's north) is returning to normal. Commercial activities are taking place and the civilians are also very happy'."

Brisbane priest Dominican Fr Pan Jordan, who has a Tamil background, said the Government's policy change ignores the dangers people faced.

"Despite the end of the country's civil war seven months ago, voicing a critical opinion in Sri Lanka remains very dangerous," he said.

"In recent weeks several journalists have fled the country fearing for their lives. They have joined scores of others living in exile because they feel it is too dangerous to report independently in their country."