Australia under fire over offshore detention at UN

A total of 110 nations put forward recommendations for Australia to improve its human rights record at the Monday meeting, with its treatment of asylum seekers and indigenous people drawing particular criticism from member states.

Numerous more than 100 country representatives who took part in the UN Human Rights Council review of Australia’s rights record scolded the country over its tough immigration policies.

Germany called on Australia to remove children and their families from detention centres “in particular survivors of torture and trauma”.

And during a three-house session – undoubtedly made more stressful by our upcoming bid for a place at the table – dozens of countries passionately denounced our treatment of asylum seekers, and our broader policy around border control.

And Turkey, which hosts almost 2 million refugees, said Australia had to immediately cease transferring asylum seekers to third countries.

Sweden’s delegate told the United Nations session Australia was the only country that used offshore processing and mandatory detention of irregular immigrants, according to ABC.

The United States, Britain and others said Australia should stop turning back migrant boats and using offshore detention centres. Many delegates on Monday also expressed concerns about Australia’s treatment of its indigenous peoples, including high incarceration rates for young Aboriginal men.

Australia sends, or is planning to send, asylum seekers and refugees to Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Cambodia and Kyrgyzstan. None of those countries spoke in Geneva.

“Australia can not flout worldwide law and then be trusted to uphold those very laws”.

“I don’t think the Australians would accept that there are human rights issues, and from New Zealand’s point of view we’ve said that we will investigate any that were brought to our attention”.

“The Australian delegation justified the policy on the same lines as the government: stopping drownings at sea, combating people smuggling and prioritising UNHCR refugees”. Countries including Ireland, Norway, Denmark, Canada, Uruguay, Kenya and Paraguay flagged the overrepresentation of Indigenous Australians in the criminal justice system.

Regional processing “allows us to save lives”, he said.

However Russian Federation pointed out that Australia had fully implemented just 10 per cent of the 145 recommendations it had accepted from that review – a statistic it plucked from this year’s report by the Australian Human Rights Commission.

Australian delegation head John Reid of the attorney-general’s department told the council that Canberra’s measures to deter migrants had “saved lives at sea”.

“Australia’s strong border protection measures have played a key role in enabling the government to maintain meaningful and significant humanitarian resettlement and assistance programmes”, he said, citing its offer to resettle 12,000 refugees from Syria and Iraq.

Last night at the UN, there were calls from nations in every region and political grouping in the world, for Australia to change its policies.

LISA MILLAR: Australia did respond, saying it had saved countless lives at sea as it tried to encouraged managed migration.

LISA MILLAR: Philip Lynch, the director of the global Service for Human Rights, predicts this will have an impact on Australia’s bid to win a seat on the council from 2018.

In terms of asylum seekers’ rights, the Law Council urged the Australian Government to ensure that, in accordance with its previous UPR commitments, the processing of claims is in accordance with the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and that detention only occurs when strictly necessary. “Now it’s up to Australia to see if it will seriously commit to addressing these concerns”.