By Samuel Miller
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America and Oceania
MELBOURNE, Australia — Asylum seekers being held in a controversial center in the South Pacific are to be allowed to roam free, effectively ending their detention. All 600 people at the center on Nauru will be allowed to move around the tiny island nation; they will also have their outstanding applications for asylum processed within the next seven days.
The surprise decision also came two days before the Australian High Court was due to examine the legality of Australia’s role in the offshore detention.
Successive Australian governments have vowed to stop asylum seekers reaching the mainland. For example, the country has previously turned boats back to Indonesia when it could, and sending those it could not for detention in camps on Nauru and on Manus Island in impoverished Papua New Guinea.
Justice Minister David Adeang issued a statement regarding the recent developments on Nauru and Manus Island Monday,
“The start of detention-free processing is a landmark day for Nauru and represents an even more compassionate program, which was always the intention of our government,” said Mr. Adeang. Mr. Adeang also confirmed that the Australian authorities would “provide support with safety, security and law enforcement.”
Advocates have long criticized Australia’s policy to hold asylum seekers on outlying islands, where they face the risks of violence and long periods in difficult conditions with limited medical care. Last month, an Australian Senate Report found conditions on Nauru were not appropriate or safe for detainees, and urged the government to remove children from the center.
Hugh de Kretser, the executive director of the Human Rights Law Center in Melbourne, Australia, expressed sentiments of both cautious optimism and skepticism.
“It is a welcome development that will provide some relief to the 600 or so people being detained, but it doesn’t address the fundamental injustice of warehousing people on a tiny island nation.”
Mr. de Kretser went on to question the timing of the announcement, which came just days before a hearing at Australia’s High Court on a challenge to the country’s immigration policy filed by the law center.
“We don’t think it’s a coincidence that this announcement is happening three years after the reopening of the detention center and two days before the highest court is considering the lawfulness of offshore detention on Nauru.”
The legal challenge has been brought on behalf of a pregnant woman from Bangladesh who was taken to Australia from the detention center in Nauru for hospital treatment. More than 200 asylum seekers, including 50 children, are also seeking legal protection after being taken to Australia for medical care they could not receive in Nauru and Manus Island.
The harsh conditions at the camps, including reports of systemic child abuse, have been strongly criticized by the United Nations and human rights groups.
An independent U.N. investigator postponed an official visit to Australia last month, citing a lack of government cooperation and “unacceptable” legal restrictions.
For more information, please see:
BBC News — Nauru to end detention of asylum seekers – 5 October 2015
Reuters — Tiny Nauru throws gates open at Australian camp for asylum seekers – 5 October 2015
Sky News — Asylum Seekers Free To Leave Nauru Centre – 5 October 2015
