Human Rights Watch to Australia: Drop asylum deal with M’sia

NEW YORK: Australia risks reneging on its international legal obligations if it forcibly transfers 800 asylum seekers to Malaysia, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

It urged Australia not to proceed with the deal, in which Australia would in turn accept 4,000 refugees.

"The government will be violating its human rights obligations if any of the 800 asylum seekers sent to Malaysia ends up in its migration detention centers," said Bill Frelick, Refugee Program director at Human Rights Watch.

According to Gillard, the purpose of the Malaysia-Australia agreement is to end "the trade in human misery" by sending undocumented asylum seekers who arrive by boat to Malaysia, thus frustrating their preference to seek asylum in Australia.

Human Rights Watch said the deal would involve two countries with completely different standards for treatment of asylum seekers and refugees.

While Australia is a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention and has asylum laws and procedures, Malaysia has not ratified the convention, has no domestic refugee law, and no governmental refugee screening procedure.

Malaysia instead relies on under-resourced and backlogged refugee status determination interviews by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Because Malaysia makes no distinction in law between refugees and other irregular migrants, it cannot reliably be regarded as providing refugees effective protection.

"The Australia-Malaysia deal may encourage governments to shirk their obligations under the Refugee Convention by transferring asylum seekers to countries that have not ratified the convention," Frelick said.

"The real purpose of this agreement is to prevent boat people' from seeking asylum in Australia," Frelick said.

"In effect, it punishes one group of asylum seekers because they arrived without documents by boat and forces them to face years of uncertainty in Malaysia."


(2011-5-27/thestar)