Human Rights Groups Criticize Australia’s Refugee Center

Australia has opened a new refugee center 2,000 miles offshore that apparently leaves a lot to be desired from a human rights perspective. Cathy Alexander writes for the Sydney Morning Herald:

Refugee advocates who have toured Australia’s new immigration detention centre on Christmas Island say it is “extremely harsh”. The Federal Government has softened immigration laws so that fewer asylum seekers will be detained, and for shorter periods. But boat people will still be detained on Christmas Island – and refugee groups have slammed the $400 million detention centre’s “high-security, prison-like character”.

Amnesty International and seven other groups wrote to Immigration Minister Chris Evans following a tour of the centre last week. The centre was “a stark environment to detain people seeking asylum [in] while their applications for protection are determined”, the letter said.

“The very expensive security systems of the facility are quite unnecessary for the population who may be detained there. The damage that has been done to people’s mental and physical health by detaining them in remote, high-security detention centres such as this has been documented repeatedly.”

The letter, signed by groups including the Refugee Council of Australia and the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, called for all asylum seekers to have their applications dealt with under the procedures that apply on the mainland.

Christmas Island is located in the Indian Ocean, more than 2000 kilometres from Perth; the centre can accommodate up to 800 people. Click here for the rest of the story.

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