Refugees in Indefinite Detention: Fact Sheet

With thanks to Urban Neighbours of Hope (UNOH) for this fact sheet. 

www.unoh.org

Refugees in Indefinite Detention FACT SHEET

Refugees in indefinite detention...

• Have been granted refugee status, acknowledging that they have well founded fear of persecution or harm in their home country

• As part of the refugee assessment, they have been found not to have committed war crimes. • Have been given an adverse security assessment (ASA) by ASIO

• based on classified information that they are not allowed to see • which has never been open to a legally binding appeal • consequently they are being held in detention indefinitely

‘The Australian Government’s firm position is that individuals with an adverse security assessment should remain in immigration detention until they can be removed from Australia, either to their country of origin or a third country, where it is safe to do so.’ - spokesperson for Brendan O’Connor

• No third country has ever taken a refugee with an ASA • Refugees cannot be removed to their country of origin under UN refoulement laws

Recent changes...

• The High Court ruled that an ASIO ASA cannot be used as a reason to deny a protection visa

• An Independent review process was introduced, in which retired judge Margaret Stone would review the ASA’s of the 55 refugees in indefinite detention

• Her findings would be then given to Immigration Minister Brendan O’Conner, Attorney General Mark Dreyfus and Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Dr Vivienne Thom, who are under no compulsion to accept the findings

• In this process, refugees and their lawyers have been given very short summary statements of the reasons leading to adverse assessments

• So far, 2 refugees (and their 3 children) have had their assessments overturned by the Stone review, and have been released into the community. A further 3 (including 3 children), have had their assessments upheld, which means they will remain in detention indefinitely

Indefinite Detention and Sri Lanka

• 52 out of the initially 55 indefinite detainees are Tamils from Sri Lanka • The Tamils, who suffered much oppression under the Sinhalese Sri Lankan government,

fought a civil war against the government which ended in May, 2009, when estimates of somewhere between 10,000 to 70,000 Tamil wounded, women and children were slaughtered by the Sri Lankan army. The UN has called for independent investigations into war crimes by the Sri Lankan government.

• There are continuing reports of human rights abuses by the Sri Lankan government toward Tamils, including abduction, interrogation, rape and torture, in order to gain ‘confessions’ of involvement with the Tamil Tigers (LTTE), information which, given the secrecy of the ASIO findings, potentially could be used by ASIO to make assessments.

• No other country in the world deems it necessary to detain Tamils as security threats. No other country deems it necessary to detain Tamils as security threats

• Viewed from this angle, Australia’s political relationship with Sri Lanka is problematic. While the UN and organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have expressed grave concerns about Sri Lanka’s abuse of human rights, Australia’s main concern is to work with Sri Lanka to ‘stop the boats’, a position which necessitates turning a blind eye to human rights abuses and labeling Tamils as ‘economic refugees’