Australia asked to pay compensation for violating rights of asylum seekers in Nauru camps
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UN watchdog finds refugees and asylum seekers suffered deterioration of physical and mental health in offshore detention camps. Australia violated the human rights of asylum seekers by detaining them on the remote Pacific island of Nauru, a UN panel has ruled, asking the country to pay compensation.
The United Nations Human Rights Committee found that Australia violated two provisions of the human rights treaty in cases involving 24 refugees and asylum seekers, including minors, who were detained while trying to enter Australia by boat in 2013.
The asylum seekers, who came from Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Myanmar, ended up suffering years of arbitrary detention. “A state party cannot escape its human rights responsibility when outsourcing asylum processing to another state,” committee member Mahjoub El Haiba said.
After introducing a hardline immigration policy over a decade ago, Australia started sending asylum seekers intercepted at sea to detention camps on Nauru and Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island for “offshore processing” instead of allowing them to live in the country as refugees.
“The outsourcing of operations does not absolve states of accountability,” Mr El Haiba noted. “Offshore detention facilities are not human rights free zones for the state party, which remains bound by the provisions of the covenant.”. The UN panel found Canberra violated two provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, one on arbitrary detention and the other on protecting the right of refugees to challenge their detention in court.
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