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Down Under
UN tells Aust to resolve Nauru detainee cases
2005-04-18
THE UN has called on the Australian Government to find a humanitarian solution to deal with the remaining asylum seekers detained on the Pacific island of Nauru. The Federal Government had an obligation to find a solution for the 54 asylum seekers on Nauru, almost all of whom have been denied refugee status but refuse to return to their homelands, Neill Wright, the regional representative for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said.
Los of uninhabited islands in the Pacific. Offer them a choice.
Mr Wright spent several days on Nauru last week and said he was concerned about the welfare of the asylum seekers held under the Government's Pacific solution of detaining asylum seekers offshore so they cannot access the Australian legal system. "They are between a shark rock and a coral reef hard place," he told ABC radio.

"They don't feel it's safe to go back to their own country and yet they have not been determined to be persons in need of international protection - in other words, refugees.

"As a result they are stuck in the offshore processing centre where they have been for the last three and a half years.

"I think there's a responsibility taken on by the Australian Government to find solutions for these people.

"They have been successful in a large part of the caseload but they've now got the remaining 54 who do need a solution."

"What I'm saying is not as a refugee advocate from the UNHCR, but as a humanitarian advocate: Let's try and find a solution for them that means that they won't spend the next three and a half years on this island in the Pacific."
Okay, how many will you personally sponsor in your own home? Oh right, you want someone else to take on the heavy lifting.
More than 1200 asylum seekers have been detained on Nauru since 2001, with around 700 resettling to other countries and about 470 returning to their native countries.

Mr Wright said the asylum seekers on Nauru were well treated, but he had concerns about their mental health. "In most cases it's not good for their mental health to be there - particularly in the case of women and children, who are particularly vulnerable," he said. "It's also not a place I feel, where although they receive basic education, children can be brought up for any length of time."

Meanwhile, Labor senator Kerry O'Brien visited the immigration detention facility on Christmas Island today and said the trip reinforced the Opposition view that children should be exempt from immigration detention. He said 35 Vietnamese nationals, including nine children, were detained at the centre and had been locked up for almost two years. "It's time the Government heeded Labor's call and stopped punishing children for their parents' decision to seek asylum in Australia," Senator O'Brien said.
So they can go back to Vietnam.
Meanwhile, Democrats senator Andrew Bartlett will visit the Baxter facility in South Australia tomorrow to scrutinise isolation cells in which Australian resident Cornelia Rau was held when she was wrongly locked up as an illegal immigrant.

Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone said there had already been voluntary returns to Iraq and Afghanistan and those remaining had declined to follow this step. "These people have all been assessed at least twice and 45 of them three times, and found not to be in need of protection," Senator Vanstone said. "They could end their time on Nauru by agreeing to return voluntarily.

"Importantly, the UNHCR itself has found eight people within its current caseload on Nauru not to be in need of protection."
Posted by:God Save The World

#2  "UN tells Aust to resolve Nauru detainee cases"

I hope Australia told the Useless Numbnuts to fuck off and MYOB.

If the UN thinks it's so important to give these people a place to live, they should let them move into UN headquarters IN GENEVA.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut   2005-04-18 2:51:05 PM  

#1  Big mistake to send them to a place with beaches and the weather is nice with free room and board. Should have picked somewhere like Kerguelen or South Georgia and they would have been long gone since they can leave anytime they like, expenses paid.
Posted by: phil_b   2005-04-18 7:29:24 AM  

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