Refugee Rights are Human Rights, nsw, Amnesty International Australia

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Refugee Rights are Human Rights

Published on 28/10/2009
NSW Refugee Network

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Tamil asylum seekers aboard a boat intercepted by the Indonesian Navy, October 16 2009. © AAP Image/Adam Gartrell

"Everyone has the right to seek and enjoy in other countries freedom from persecution"

- Article 14, Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Not everyone is lucky enough to be born into a country where their human rights will be upheld. However, it is the unassailable right of every human being to seek refuge from persecution in a country safer and more humane than one's own.

Despite Australia's long history of fear mongering and demonising these victims of torture, poverty and abuse, who comprise some of the most vulnerable and desperate people on earth, the facts of regarding asylum seekers read very differently.

Australia currently accepts less than one tenth of one percent of the world’s refugees.

Of this miniscule percentage, 96% arrive by plane, with only a very small minority arriving by boat.

Furthermore, the Department of Immigration and Citizenship’s figures indicate that 84% of those who arrive unauthorised in Australia seeking asylum are found to be genuine refugees who are fleeing from life threatening circumstances, as opposed to the widespread misconception of 'queue jumpers' seeking wealthier lives in Western countries.

In fact, the myth of a 'queue', in which refugees from around the world have their names recorded in an organised database and 'wait their turn', is completely untrue, as is the Prime Minister's labelling of asylum seekers as 'illegal immigrants'.

Asylum seekers and refugees are not 'illegal immigrants'.

On the contrary, these people are exercising their basic human right to safety and freedom from persecution. The right to asylum is recognised in international law and supported by the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees, to which Australia is signed and obligated.

And yet right now, our government is proposing to pay Indonesia, a country who has not signed the UN convention on Refugees and whose refugee policy has been described by Australian researchers as ‘horrendous’, to intercept all people seeking refuge in Australia before we have even had a chance to hear their claims.

It is well known to the Australian Government that Indonesian detention facilities are hugely overcrowded, under provided for and the average time frame for a refugee claim to be processed is 10 years. Even when and if a claim is finally accepted, refugees are not permitted in Indonesia to seek employment, send their children to school, apply for family reunion or residency.

That the Australian government is willing to condemn some of the world’s most vulnerable, traumatised people to such a future, without so much as listening to their claims, is an evasion of the responsibilities outlined in the UN Convention for Refugees.

As put by AIA Refugee Coordinator Graham Thom, “no matter how politically inconvenient, no government of Australia can simply wish away the victims of war, abuse and conflict”.

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Australian Detention Centre