[Kabar-indonesia] The Australian: Refugees Face New Threat of Ejection [+Camps]

[Joyo3]

also: SMH: Detention camp has it all, but no people; and
SMH: Afghans sent packing after court rules on temporary
visas

The Australian
Thursday, November 16, 2006

Refugees Face New Threat of Ejection

by Cath Hart

THE Howard Government will be able to more easily deport
refugees on temporary protection visas after the High Court
ruled asylum-seekers were responsible for proving that a
return to their homelands would be too dangerous. More than
630 asylum-seekers from countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq,
Iran and Sri Lanka, who have applied for further protection
after their TPVs expired, now face a higher risk of
deportation. The 4-1 High Court ruling in the parallel cases
of two Afghan men found that asylum-seekers asking for
further Australian protection must prove their refugee
status still exists after their initial three-year visa
expires, effectively putting the onus of proof on refugees,
rather than the Government.

Minority judge Michael Kirby described the rulings as
parochial and hostile to international law.

But the judgments said that "neither the texts nor the
histories of the (Migration) Act or the (Refugee) Convention
require that when the threat passes, protection should be
regarded as necessary and continuing".

The judgments, which are believed to have left the men
"devastated", will affect all TPV holders applying for
further protection when their visas expire.

They will have an immediate effect on 17 litigation cases,
10 matters currently before the Refugee Review Tribunal and
630 applications for further protection from current TPV
holders.

The cases were brought by the Government against the two
Shia Afghan men, who fled persecution by the Taliban in 1999
and whose applications for further protection were rejected
after the Taliban was deposed by coalition forces, including
Australian troops, in late 2001.

Lawyers for the men, from the Hazara ethnic group, had
argued it was up to the Government to prove that its
obligations under the Refugee Convention had ceased because
"substantial, effective and durable" changes had taken place
in their homeland.

The court rejected the argument, finding the men were
responsible for proving they still had a fear of persecution
if they returned.

The Department of Foreign Affairs still advises against
travel to Afghanistan, citing the "extremely dangerous
security situation and the very high threat of terrorist
attack" despite the court's ruling that the country improved
after the fall of the Taliban.

In his dissenting judgment, Justice Kirby said that in the
cases of both men, Australian decision-makers, safe in this
country, might regard the beheading of 12 ethnic Hazaras as
unimportant or isolated incidents. "But to a person whose
experience had already invoked a well-founded fear of
persecution, occasioning flight to Australia to seek refugee
status, such an instance might be indicative of more
widespread, systematic violent activity apt to occasion a
well-founded fear of continuing persecution," he said.

The Government took the matter to the High Court following a
decision by the Federal Court to overturn an earlier ruling
in 2004 by the Refugee Review Tribunal that Australia had
ceased to owe protection obligations to the men because the
situation in Afghanistan had improved following the
Taliban's removal from power.

Between 1999 and October 20 this year, 9875 applicants had
been granted TPVs. About 8450 of these have subsequently
been granted permanent protection visas. In June last year,
a rebel group of Liberal moderates led by Victorian MP Petro
Georgiou secured concessions from John Howard on Australia's
migration and detention policies. They included the release
of hundreds of asylum-seekers on TPVs from detention into
the community, as well as finalising decisions on 4000 TPV
holders.

Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone yesterday welcomed the
High Court decision, saying it confirmed that refugees under
Australia's temporary protection will not be guaranteed
continuing protection once conditions in their former
country have improved.

"The High Court found that there is no presumption that once
a person has been granted a TPV they continue to be a
refugee until the Government proves otherwise," she said.

Opposition immigration spokesman Tony Burke said the
decision "allows the Government to keep people on an endless
stream of temporary visas". Under Labor policy, the
government would need to prove it is safe for a person to
return to to their country.

Justice Kirby said the High Court had cut itself off from
the UN High Commissioner for Refugees guidelines in a way
that "reveals a degree of parochialism that, unless clearly
warranted by the peculiarities of domestic law, is
inappropriate to the legal task of interpreting and giving
effect to the provisions of an international treaty which
Australia has opted to ratify and which it has incorporated
by reference into its federal law".

Read the High Court judgments at

www. theaustralian.com.au

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Sydney Morning Herald
Thursday, November 16, 2006

Detention camp has it all, but no people

By Ben Cubby
THE new immigration detention camp being built on Christmas
Island, dubbed "Australia's Guantanamo Bay" by opponents,
will have bedroom cameras, electric fences and
electronically controlled doors allowing centre-wide lock-
downs, plans leaked from the island show.

The level of security and surveillance, greater than at any
existing detention centre, makes parts of the complex
comparable to a maximum security prison.

But with the numbers arriving by boat plummeting since 2003,
critics are asking why the 800-bed centre, which is thought
to have cost more than $240 million, is being built at all.

The Government says the high-tech enclosure is a deterrent
to smugglers and illegal entrants, and useful for
contingencies.

"While the Government's policies have been successful in
stemming the flow of unauthorised boat arrivals, the
capacity needs to be available should unauthorised arrival
numbers start increasing," the Department of Immigration
said in a statement.

Asked if an influx was expected, the department said:
"People movements are unpredictable."

The leaked plans for one section of the centre say "each
bedroom shall be provided with a corner mounted camera and
intercom". Doors to some of the bedrooms, and other rooms,
can be locked electronically from a central point, allowing
the centre to be "locked down". Televisions will be wired so
they can be turned off from a central point.

The perimeter is guarded by cameras, lights and an
electrified outer fence.

There are isolation rooms similar to the type in which
Cornelia Rau was held in the Baxter detention centre in
South Australia. And there are many specialised interview
rooms, with reinforced glass separating detainees from
staff.

Christmas Island lies about 500 kilometres south of Jakarta,
and the new camp is in an isolated area of national park
near the western tip of the island, surrounded by cliffs.

The centre, which is due for completion within months, has
received bipartisan support from the Government and the
Opposition.

But a spokesman for Labor's immigration spokesman, Tony
Burke, said he had concerns about the cost.

Refugee groups and the Greens and Democrats have attacked
the centre as inhumane.

The Greens senator Kerry Nettle, who has visited the site,
said it was "callous and cruel to treat people in that way.
The international community has rejected Guantanamo Bay, so
why should we build one here?"

"They [the Government] made a commitment to do this, to
build this place, and they perceive any backdown as a form
of weakness even though we don't need it," Senator Nettle
said.

John Gibson, the president of the Refugee Council of
Australia, said the camp "sounds like Alcatraz … It is very
disappointing, because people who will be held there have
committed no crime under Australian law.

"All the reports show the conditions in detention have a
significant detrimental effect on people's physical and
psychological health."

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Sydney Morning Herald
Thursday, November 16, 2006

Afghans sent packing after court rules on temporary visas

By Tim Dick and Ben Cubby

REFUGEES can be deported when the Government considers it
safe enough for them to go home, with the High Court
yesterday rejecting arguments by two Afghans that they
should be able to stay once accepted as refugees.

In a rare move, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees
intervened to support the men, but it failed to convince the
court.

By a 4-1 majority, the court backed the Commonwealth's
controversial system of temporary protection visas, despite
the High Commissioner's submission that a refugee's status
should not be subject to frequent review.

Neither of the men - known only as QAAH and NBGM - are now
entitled to remain refugees under Australian law, because
the Refugee Review Tribunal found that the Taliban, from
which they fled, had lost power since they were first
accepted as needing protection.

The decisions mean people afforded temporary refuge will not
remain refugees when conditions improve in their homeland,
temporary protection visas do not guarantee continuing
protection, and the Government does not have to prove that
changes in the homeland are "substantial, effective and
durable".

The Immigration Minister, Amanda Vanstone, welcomed the
decisions, saying permanent protection should only be given
when a person still had a fear of persecution.

"[Temporary protection visas] are a key plank of our border-
protection measures, and help ensure more of Australia's
refugee places are taken by those assessed by the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees as being in most desperate need of
resettlement," she said.

But the Greens and the Democrats criticised the effect of
the decisions, claiming the temporary refugee system left
asylum seekers in limbo. The Democrats senator Andrew
Bartlett said: "Once an asylum seeker has been assessed as a
refugee, they should be allowed to rebuild their lives here,
not be under constant threat of repatriation to unstable or
unsafe conditions."

Both men are Shiite Muslims of the Hazara minority ethnic
group who arrived in Australia in 1999 and were granted
temporary protection visas in 2000.

One of the men, QAAH, has not seen his wife or children for
seven years, and collapsed during the High Court hearing.
Aged in his 30s, he lives in Brisbane and, until recently,
had a job in factory.

He is understood to be preparing an application to ask
Senator Vanstone to use her ministerial discretion in his
case. If that appeal fails, he will have to return to
Afghanistan.

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Joyo Indonesia News Service
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