{"id":914,"date":"2011-05-08T04:36:53","date_gmt":"2011-05-08T04:36:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/?p=914"},"modified":"2011-05-08T04:36:53","modified_gmt":"2011-05-08T04:36:53","slug":"refugee-groups-oppose-gillards-offshore-solutions-in-malaysia-and-png","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/?p=914","title":{"rendered":"REFUGEE GROUPS OPPOSE GILLARD\u2019S OFFSHORE \u2018SOLUTIONS\u2019 IN MALAYSIA, AND PNG"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>DOWNLOAD OUR NEW FACT SHEET ON THE MALAYSIAN SOLUTION HERE<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong>
\n<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Julia Gillard\u2019s announcement of a deal to send asylum seekers attempting to arrive in Australia by boat to Malaysia is just the latest chapter in Australia\u2019s attempts to dodge its international obligations as a signatory to the UN Convention on Refugees, according to the Refugee Action Coalition.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s be clear who the Australian government has chosen to do a deal with,\u201d said Mark Goudkamp from the Refugee Action Coalition. \u201cMalaysia is a repressive authoritarian state and a human rights pariah which is regularly criticized by groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. It treats refugees and asylum seekers as illegal undocumented workers, so they are the targets of particular maltreatment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are often brutally arrested and held in filthy, insect ridden and overcrowded detention camps. There are no beds, only wooden boards without mattresses. When found guilty of immigration offences, asylum seekers are tied up and caned until they bleed. This is the sort of regime the government has chosen to do business with.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGillard refused to deal with Nauru since it hasn\u2019t signed the UN Refugee Convention,\u201d Goudkamp continued. \u201cBut Malaysia hasn\u2019t signed the convention either. Australia will be directly involved with the violation of asylum seekers\u2019 \u00a0human rights. Australia\u2019s will become an even bigger pariah among the international community.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAn Amnesty International report released last June (Abused and Abandoned: Refugees Denied Rights in Malaysia) revealed that the tens of thousands of refugees and asylum seekers in Malaysia are refused legal recognition, protection, or the right to work.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cAs well as caning, they are subjected to arbitrary arrest, and deportation back to the persecution that they fled. Meanwhile, the Malaysian volunteer police force RELA operates in a climate of impunity in their treatment of asylum seekers. The approximately 10,000 refugee children have no access to formal education.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no freedom of the press in Malaysia, and there\u2019s widespread use of preventive imprisonment, Goudkamp continued. \u201cWriters and journalists are often bullied; peaceful protests and opposition meetings are broken up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cReports in Malaysia\u2019s Sun newspaper that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Organisation Migration (IOM) are co-operating to \u2018operationalise the arrangement\u2019 are deeply troubling. The UNHCR should have nothing to do with a deal that is designed to deny the rights asylum seekers have under the UN Convention,\u201d Goudkamp concluded.<\/p>\n

Ian Rintoul, also from the Refugee Action Coalition said, \u201cRather than make a complete break with the failed offshore processing policies of John Howard\u2019s government, Labor is resurrecting them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Timorese have rejected the relentless pressure applied by Australia. Within a day of the announcement that PNG\u2019s Manus Island detention centre might re-open, it was roundly condemned by human rights groups, churches, the Governor of Port Moresby, and Bruce Baird, who formerly held Scott Morrison\u2019s seat for the Liberals.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGillard\u2019s \u2018Malaysian Solution\u2019 will send desperate asylum seekers to a country that is one of SE Asia\u2019s most infamous human rights abusers. Eight hundred asylum seekers will be arbitrarily selected and sent to Malaysian hell-holes,\u201d \u00a0Rintoul added.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter three and a half years of Labor government, we are back to the anti-refugee policies of John Howard. \u00a0Hundreds of recognized refugees are still in Australia\u2019s detention centres waiting for ASIO security clearances,\u201d added Rintoul.<\/p>\n

Along with ChilOut, RAC is holding a forum on Monday 9 May at 6pm with speakers who\u2019ve recently been inside the Curtin and Christmas Island detention centres.<\/p>\n

RAC is also holding a lunchtime protest on \u2018Friday the 13th\u2019 of May against the \u2018Return of the Liberal Dead\u2019 at the Immigration Department\u2019s offices in Lee St, Sydney, in reference to Chris Bowen\u2019s plan to re-introduce temporary visas for refugees convicted of criminal offences in detention, and relentless pursuit of offshore processing options, offloading its international obligations onto impoverished neighbours.<\/p>\n

And along with a large variety of refugee groups, RAC groups across the country are holding World Refugee Day rallies on Sunday 19 June.<\/p>\n

For more information, call Ian Rintoul 0417275713 or Mark Goudkamp 0422078376, and visit www.refugeeaction.org.au<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DOWNLOAD OUR NEW FACT SHEET ON THE MALAYSIAN SOLUTION HERE\u00a0 Julia Gillard\u2019s announcement of a deal to send asylum seekers attempting to arrive in Australia by boat to Malaysia is just the latest chapter in Australia\u2019s attempts to dodge its international obligations as a signatory to the UN Convention on Refugees, according to the Refugee […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":311091,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-914","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-press-releases"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/311091"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}