Australia Ordered to Shut Papua New Guinea Immigration Compound
Decision follows court ruling that detention of asylum seekers at Manus Island center is illegal
CANBERRA, Australia — Papua New Guinea ordered the closure of an Australian-operated immigration detention center after a court ruled that hundreds of asylum seekers were being held there illegally.
The decision will force Australia’s conservative government to find an alternative place to house the 850 migrants detained on remote Manus Island, ahead of an expected July national election in which the treatment of asylum seekers will be a central issue.
“Respecting this ruling, Papua New Guinea will immediately ask the Australian government to make alternative arrangements for the asylum seekers currently held at the Regional Processing Centre,” Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Peter O’Neill said in a statement.
The Papua New Guinea Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that detention of asylum seekers on Manus Island — which critics have labeled Australia’s Guantanamo Bay — breached the constitutional right to freedom for 850 people held there. Half of those people have already been assessed as refugees by Papua New Guinea officials. The five-member court ordered both governments to take immediate steps to remove all detainees from the center.
Australia’s Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said Wednesday the court ruling wouldn’t change Canberra’s immigration policy, and that Australian officials would discuss with Papua New Guinea’s government the issues raised by the decision.
“The [Australian] government has not resiled from its position that people who have attempted to come illegally by boat to Australia and who are now in the Manus facility will not be settled in Australia,” Mr. Dutton said.
Under tough laws first put in place in 2001 and backed by a majority of Australian voters, successive governments have required asylum seekers intercepted en route to Australia to be sent to immigration detention centers in Papua New Guinea or the tiny South Pacific nation of Nauru.
Australia has deployed a maritime blockade, including using Navy vessels, in the Indian Ocean to cut off migrant boats at sea. The asylum seekers typically are from countries such as Sri Lanka, Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Myanmar.
The refugee policy has been strongly criticized by the United Nations and human-rights groups, but the Australian government argues it has succeeded in halting a surge in the number of migrants reaching the country by boat from ports in Indonesia and elsewhere.
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who is expected to call elections after next week’s budget, has vowed to uphold the policy, despite criticism from the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and Amnesty International that conditions in the offshore detention centers are inhumane.
Rights groups and whistleblowers inside the camps have reported claims of sexual abuse and protests in which detained asylum seekers have sewn their lips shut or launched hunger strikes. Lawyers representing some detainees say a number of people on Manus Island have been behind razor wire for almost three years.
On Nauru, just hours before Mr. O’Neill announced his decision to close the Manus Island center, a 23-year-old Iranian asylum seeker set himself on fire in a protest, Australia’s government said Wednesday.
Both Australia’s current administration and the previous Labor government — ousted in 2013 in part over voter unease about a rising number of asylum seekers — have negotiated with nations including Malaysia, Papua New Guinea and Cambodia to resettle asylum seekers, with little success.
Mr. Dutton said Wednesday that Australia was continuing efforts to reach agreement with Asian nations on a regional approach to the treatment of migrants.
Article Via: wsj