BY SARAH STEPHEN
"Offensive to human dignity With these four words the UN human rights envoy, Justice Bhagwati, has encapsulated the moral vacuum at the heart of Australia's mandatory detention of refugees", wrote Howard Dick, an associate professor at Melbourne University, in the August 2 Melbourne Age.
Prafullachandra Bhagwati visited Australia between May 24 and June 2 to prepare a report on human rights and immigration detention in Australia for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson. He met with government officials and human rights organisations, and visited the Woomera detention centre. Bhagwati labelled the treatment of asylum seekers in the Woomera centre as "inhuman and degrading".
His report stated: "[Woomera detainees] were prisoners without having committed any offence. Their only fault was that they left their native home and sought to find refuge or a better life on the Australian soil... [Bhagwati] felt he was in front of a great human tragedy. He saw young boys and girls, who instead of breathing the fresh air of freedom, were confined behind spiked iron bars with gates barred and locked preventing them from going out and playing and running in the open fields."
The report, released in Geneva on July 31, was fully endorsed by Robinson, who urged the Australian government to "review the concerns expressed and seek appropriate ways to address them".
Prime Minister John Howard's Coalition government dismissed the report. A press release issued by immigration minister Philip Ruddock, foreign minister Alexander Downer and attorney-general Daryl Williams on July 31 branded the report "fundamentally flawed". It argued that Bhagwati "misconceived government policy", that his report was full of inaccuracies and was "highly emotive". The ministers failed to mention that the government had been provided with a draft of the report and had been asked to point out any factual inaccuracies. The government's criticisms were noted in the final draft.
Bhagwati's report was "emotive", but what else would you expect when faced with the horrors of Australia's detention centres? What's more, the report's inaccuracies were minor. For example, the attorney-general's first name was incorrectly spelt.
Bhagwati criticised the lack of independent monitoring and accountability mechanisms, pointing out that nobody had unfettered access to detention centres.
The government argued that Bhagwati had "only" spent one day at Woomera detention centre, talking to asylum seekers. Yet have any government ministers spent even a fraction of that time talking to asylum seekers in any detention centre?
The government argued that Bhagwati received information from advocacy groups and lawyers which swayed his judgement, and that he didn't cross-check with detention centre staff the discussions he had with detainees, who the government claimed were liable to "exaggerate". The implication is that it was naive and misguided of Bhagwati to speak to people who oppose the government's refugee policies, and that this discredits his report.
However, not only did Bhagwati meet with the government and detention centre management, he was accompanied by a government official during his entire visit.
The truth is that the Australian government made Bhagwati's visit as difficult as possible arranging it three months later than Mary Robinson had requested, stalling on whether to allow Bhagwati to visit (he was given the official go-ahead just days before he was due to arrive) and restricting his access to detention centres. The government and the corporate media are criticising the brief nature of his trip, and the limited time spent visiting detention centres, yet it was the government which imposed those limits.
Despite the federal government's intransigence, publicity around the report has pushed the issue of mandatory detention of asylum seekers further onto centre stage. The plight of children in detention is a weak point for the government, one which it finds hardest to justify. It is this that Bhagwati's report focused on.
When parliament resumes on August 19, Greens senator Bob Brown will move an amendment to legislation currently before the Senate to prohibit children from being kept in detention. He has called on Labor and the Democrats senators to support him.
Brown said in an August 1 press release: "When it comes to children, [Ruddock] must be confronted by the parliament. This should be a first step to abolishing Australia's mandatory detention system so that asylum seekers are only held for initial health and security checks."
Brown's call has been supported by torture and trauma expert Paris Aristotle, a member of the government-appointed Immigration Detention Advisory Group. Aristotle added that any move to release children must include their parents.
The Democrats have echoed the call for children to be released from detention. Labor's immigration spokesperson Julia Gillard has called for an expansion of a trial program which involves releasing family groups into housing near the Woomera detention centre. Even members of Howard's back-bench are calling for asylum seekers to be released Howard has dismissed them as naive.
Ridiculously, the government continues to deny that its policy of indefinite detention of children is in violation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. It argues that it is in their best interests to be detained with their parents. Yet the convention states that children should be detained only as a last resort, and for the shortest possible time. Most countries allow families to live in the community while their claims are being assessed. It seems increasingly ridiculous that Australia cannot do the same.
From Green Left Weekly, August 7, 2002.
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