Mens Australien er i fuld gang med at sende omkring 1.000 asylansøgere til Cambodja mod betaling, arbejder politikerne på at stramme yderligere op på love om asyl og indvandring og udtænke nye måder at afskrække asylansøgere fra at komme til landet.
PHNOM PENH, 29 October 2014 (IRIN): As Australia moves ahead with a plan to resettle some 1,000 refugees in Cambodia, its government is trying to change a range of laws so as to give it a freer hand to dismiss future asylum claims.
Earlier this year, Immigration Minister Scott Morrison touted the Cambodia transfer as, “an arrangement where people are being resettled in a country that has signed the Refugee Convention, being supported by another signatory to the Refugee Convention.”
Then, introducing the “Migration and Maritime Powers Legislation Amendment” in September, he argued:
“The new statutory framework will enable parliament to legislate… without referring directly to the Refugee Convention and therefore not being subject to the interpretations of foreign courts or judicial bodies which seek to expand the scope of the Refugee Convention well beyond what was ever intended by this country or this parliament.”
The controversial bill is now in its third reading.
“It’s a sudden and unilateral reinterpretation of a treaty which has been signed by 145 countries around the world and has been the cornerstone of international refugee protection for over 60 years,” Daniel Webb, director of legal advocacy at the Human Rights Law Centre (HRLC) in Melbourne, told IRIN.
Crimes against asylum seekers?
Meanwhile, immediate protection concerns have been raised as Cambodian government officials are reportedly travelling to Nauru, where Australia operates an off-shore processing centre for asylum seekers, for what Webb calls “an active selling of the refugee transfer arrangement by members of the regime that stands to profit from it”.
Some 1,000 detainees from Nauru are slated to be transferred to Cambodia in exchange for US$35 million in aid.
Opponents point to Cambodia’s poor treatment of asylum seekers in the past, the country’s limited capacity to care for 1,000 newcomers, and murky details about the plan – saying the move is part of Australia’s broader attempts to deter asylum seekers.
In October 2014 a Member of Parliament wrote to the International Criminal Court asking it to investigate the current administration for crimes against asylum seekers.
IRIN looks at Australia’s moves to deter would-be refugees.
What is the purpose of Operation Sovereign Borders?
In September 2013 Australia launched Operation Sovereign Borders (OSB), a military-led initiative which includes the interception of boats carrying asylum seekers towards its shores, and detaining them at off-shore processing centres in Nauru, a small island nation, and Manus Island (part of Papua New Guinea).
Læs videre hos IRIN News
