Human Rights Watch Is Unimpressed With Our Unimpressive Refugee Record

Another day, another international human rights organisation telling Australia we need to get out shit together.

As their name suggests, Human Rights Watch have been watching our human rights record over the past 12 months for their World Report 2016, and they’ve made it abundantly clear Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers still stands in contrast to our “solid record of protecting civil and political rights.”

Of course, considering the continuing saga with Abyan and letters from asylum seekers on Manus Island actually pleading with the Federal Government to just let them die, HRW’s findings don’t come as a shock. 

Reading their recollection of our head-in-the-sand approach to criticism is still quite unpleasant, though:

“Australia’s practices of mandatory detention of asylum seekers, abuses related to offshore processing, and outsourcing of refugee obligations to other countries were heavily criticized by United Nations experts, foreign governments, and even some Australian government-funded inquiries. 


However, senior government officials dismissed such criticism and even attacked and tried to discredit institutions such as Australia’s Human Rights Commission (AHRC) and the UN.”


It gets worse. The report accurately, worryingly describes the chosen locales of Australia’s detention centres as “poorer, less well-equipped, and unsafe countries,” and reminds us that prolonged mandatory detention had “profoundly negative impacts on the mental and emotional health and development of children,” even our on-shore centres.
In addition to Australia’s largely flawed refugee policy, HRW made mention of new counter-terrorism laws that would likely “have a chilling effect on whistleblowers, human rights defenders, and journalists, and impede reporting that fosters legitimate public debate,” before taking aim at the mass over-representation of Indigenous youth in detention. 
Not good, guys. Not good at all. 

Read their full run-down here.


Source: Human Rights Watch /  Fairfax. 
Photo: Scott Fisher / Getty. 


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