Sydney - Australia's poor treatment of
refugees in offshore detention camps is "draconian" and is
causing lasting damage to refugees and to Australia's reputation
as a rights-respecting country, Human Rights Watch said on
Friday.
Conditions in the camps are abusive and detainees "regularly
endure violence, threats and harassment", Human Rights Watch
said in the Australian chapter of its annual global report.
Under Australian rules, anyone intercepted while trying to
reach the country by boat is sent for processing to camps in the
Pacific Island nation of Nauru and at Manus Island, in Papua New
Guinea (PNG). They are never eligible to be resettled in
Australia.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Immigration, asked about
the report before its release, declined to comment but referred
to earlier department assertions that conditions at the camps
were adequate and were the responsibility of Nauru and PNG.
Those governments did not immediately respond to requests
for comment.
Australia said in November it had agreed with the United
States to resettle some of the refugees in the Nauru and PNG
camps, in return for Australia taking refugees from Central
America. But subsequent White House comments cast doubt on
whether the new U.S. administration would proceed with the deal.
The arrangement offered "no solution" in any case, Human
Rights Watch said, adding Australia should close the camps and
better protect refugees.
Australia's tough policy has drawn strong criticism from the
United Nations and other international rights organisations amid
a global debate on how to manage huge numbers of asylum seekers
displaced by conflict.
Successive Australian governments have supported the policy,
which they say is needed to stop people drowning at sea during
dangerous boat journeys.
More than 1,990 asylum seekers have drowned on voyages to
Australia since January 2000, according to Monash University's
Australian Border Deaths Database.
More than a third of the deaths occurred between 2007 and
2012, when Australia suspended its offshore detention programme,
including an accident in 2010 when 50 people were killed when
their boat was thrown onto rocks at Christmas Island.
That accident swung political and public opinion behind the
offshore detention policy, which has enjoyed bipartisan and
public support in Australia.
Human Rights Watch also criticised PNG for police brutality,
after officers opened fire on student protesters in June.
PNG was also "one of the most dangerous places in the world
to be a woman", and the government had failed to address
corruption, Human Rights Watch added.
Australia and PNG agreed to close the Manus Island camp in
August, but gave no date and it remains open. It held 871 people
and the Nauru camp 383 people, according to the most recent
statistics released by Australia in November.