Last minute legal action in the High Court has resulted in a temporary injunction preventing the removal of an Afghan asylum seeker to Kabul.
A further hearing will take place on Thursday.
Had the removal gone ahead it would have been the first-ever forced removal of an Afghan asylum seeker to Afghanistan since boats began arriving from there in the late 1990s.
The injunction is a major blow to the Abbott government’s plans to set a precedent for the removal of hundreds of Afghan asylum seekers. The Memorandum of Agreement with Afghanistan signed by the Labor government in 2011 expired on 11 January this year.
The Abbott government had made an extraordinary attempt to deport this 65 year-old Hazara asylum seeker, ignoring the usual protocols associated with sending asylum seekers to their home countries.
The Ministry for Refugees in the Afghan government was not notified. No attempt was made to verify identification or to obtain travel documents through the Afghan embassy in Australia; nor was the International Organisation for Migration in either Kabul or Australia, notified.
“The injunction is a small blow for justice,” said Ian Rintoul, spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition. “It would have been criminal if the Abbott government had been able to dump this 65 year-old asylum seeker at the Kabul airport. He has not even lived in Afghanistan for 27 years. His wife and 10 children are living in Quetta in Pakistan. But the government gave no consideration to this at all.
“In their rush to be seen to be tough on refugees, the government has shown yet again, how little the Abbott government is concerned for the welfare of people.
“The government knows that Afghanistan is dangerous but they just don’t care.”
For more information contact Ian Rintoul 0417 275 713
