Australia's government says it's seeking more information about claims of poor conditions and ill treatment of asylum seekers – including the use of a stun gun – at Indonesia's Tanjung Pinang detention centre. Australia funds the centre. Australia's Immigration minister Chris Evans says he's asked his officials to inquire.
Presenter: Linda Mottram
Speaker: Pamela Curr, campaign co-ordinator, Asylum Seeker Resource Centre Melbourne; Atiqullah Amiri, former Afghan asylum seeker; Chris Evans, Australia's Immigration Minister; Sarah Hanson-Young, Australian Greens Party Senator; Nick Xenophon, Independent Australian Senator
Mottram: Last year, when the Australian government was struggling to put a halt to boats full of asylum seekers leaving Indonesia bound for Australia, Canberra funded the refurbishment of the Tanjung Pinang detention centre at a cost of eight Million Australian dollars. It also funded the International Organisation for Migration to train the guards for the centre. And it said it reached an agreement with Indonesia on how to deal with people smugglers – an agreement that's never been published.
Now refugee advocates like Pamela Curr from the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre in Melbourne, say what was once a fairly benign environment for asylum seekers in Indonesia, has turned sour.
Curr: You've got guards who now have, are using electric weapons, tasers and stun guns. I can't find another detention centre in Indonesia that is using these weapons. And yet the Australian built, the Australian trained guards are using these weapons. This is deeply disturbing.
Mottram: Pamela Curr says the evidence has been obtained in conversations with people who've recently left the Tanjung Pinang centre and who were subjected to the stun guns.
One such asylum seeker is Atiqullah Amiri, an Afghan who's now been repatriated to Afghanistan. He spoke by phone to ABC television in Australia.
Amiri: More than fifteen times they gave me an electronic shock. They would do it like a gun, a small gun with an electronic shock yeah.
Mottram: He described how more than 15 times, he received an electric shock from a small gun, while other Tanjung Pinang asylum seekers have also described being threatened with what appear to have been a similar weapon.
There's been pressure on Australia's immigration minister Chris Evans, to explain whether Australia as a funder of the Tanjung Pinang centre, takes any responsibility for the observance of human rights there. Under questioning in Parliament, he's said that the head of the Tanjung Pinang detention centre and some other Sri Lankan detainees there, have denied the stun gun allegations.
Evans: I have though however asked my staff in Jakarta to make further inquiries about the issue.
Mottram: The minister was also specifically asked whether there are agreed human rights standards attached to Australia's funding of both Indonesia and the International Organisation for Migration, the IOM. Senator Evans told parliament Australia works with Indonesia to improve capacity and support for asylum seekers and with the IOM, within its mandate.
Evans: And that mandate includes the requirement to enhance the humane and orderly management of migration and the effective respect for the human rights of migrants in accordance with international law.
Mottram: Not satisfied with Canberra's response, Australian Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young is demanding that for the total of 33-Million dollars which Australia spends on asylum facilities in Indonesia, the terms of the agreement Australia and Indonesia reached last year should be released publicly.
Hanson-Young: We need more clarity from the government as to what our arrangements are with Indonesia, what conditions have been set down with Indonesia for how this money will be spend and indeed how people will be treated.
Mottram: Another Australian Senator, the independent Nick Xenophon has also voiced concern.
Xenophon: When it comes to refugee policy I think we need to have lot less chest thumping and deal with our international obligations. Because we've signed up to the refugee convention, we should process people quickly and humanely here in Australia, that's always been my position, but this Pacific or Indonesian solution I don't think really works.
Mottram: Pamela Curr says the ill treatment and poor conditions at Tanjung Pinang include not just the alleged presence of the a stun gun, but also poor food leading to repeated cases of diarrhoea, the separation of families, overcrowding and constant pressure from the International Organisation for Migration for asylum seekers to agree to be sent back to the countries they came from. And she says the deterioration has come in the last ten-to-twelve months as a direct result, she alleges, of Australian pressure.
Curr: The conditions in this centre are designed to put pressure on people so that they will sign to go home.
Mottram: And that, she claims is aimed at deflecting suggestions claim that Australia's involved in breaching its international commitment not to send asylum seekers back to a well-founded fear of persecution.