DEPORTED TO DANGER - Edmund Rice Centre

IV RESEARCH QUESTIONS 261. Has the Australian Government or its agencies sent or attempted to send asylumseekers to unsafe places? 262. Has the Australian Government or its agencies actually increased the dangers forrejected people by sending reports about them to overseas authorities? 373. In managing removals, has the Australian Government or its agencies encouragedasylum seekers to obtain false papers, or become associated with bribery andcorruption? 374. Is the manner of conducting asylum seeker removals consistent with Australia’slegal obligations? 405. Is the manner of conducting asylum seeker removals consistent with Australia’straditional values? 46CONCLUSION 51Abbreviations 53Appendices 54Appendix 1 Table 11Safety Status after Deportation: on Arrival and Afterwards byNationality by Individual Deportee.Appendix 2Interview Schedule for the ERC StudyList of PlatesPlate 1 Unused ticket to Kuwait purchased in Belconnen 29Plate 2 Australian Certificate of Identity valid for one-way travel from Australia 29Plate 3 Syrian Visa valid for 3 months 32Plate 4 Detail of Syrian Visa 32Plate 5 False Passport 39Plate 6 Certificate of Identity for Stateless Bedoon 40

DEPORTED TO DANGERA Study of Australia’s Treatment of 40 Rejected Asylum SeekersINTRODUCTIONMany asylum seekers are unsuccessful in their claims for refugee or humanitarianprotection in Australia. Their fate is deportation. For most, such removal - forced orvoluntary - follows lengthy incarceration in an Immigration detention and processingcentre and the threat of physical or chemical restraint for those perceived as likely to be‘difficult’.This investigation is concerned with the growing volume of claims which speak ofpeople spending fear-filled lives in hiding or, even worse, disappearance, imprisonment,torture or death after being deported from Australia.'Deportation' and 'removal' are used interchangeably in our report. The MigrationAct usually applies the term 'deportation' to criminal subjects and the term 'removal' to mostothers. In ordinary usage, however, 'deportation' seems the most appropriate descriptor. Wenote that some asylum seekers have left Australia ‘voluntarily’ but in the context of theirlives, the word has little meaning. Once finally rejected, they knew that removal wasinevitable.Rejected asylum seekers face difficult journeys, with little hope that Australianauthorities will assist after deportation. Many, emotionally and mentally damaged byprolonged isolation in Australian detention, face further confusion and trauma in the returnto another hostile country.The plight of such people was expressed to the 2000 Senate Committee 1 by manybodies such as the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC), AmnestyInternational, the Refugee Council of Australia and various legal aid and communityorganisations dealing with the victims of torture and trauma. In 2002 COPAS, a coalitionof religious groups which includes leaders from the major Christian denominations, Jewish,Moslem and Buddhist groups, petitioned the Federal Government to heed the reports ofterrible things happening to some 2 deportees and to cease sending people to countries whereprotection and human rights are problematic.In 2002, the Edmund Rice Centre decided to seek deported asylum seekers andinterview them overseas. So disquieting were the initial results that an interim report waspublished and given to the responsible Minister through DIMIA and to UNHCR inOctober 2003.This final document, Deported to Danger is based on 40 interviews conducted in2003 and 2004 and has four main parts. It begins with the personal stories of eight peoplerejected by Australia, then provides the background to the research question, examining1 Senate Legal and Constitutional Reference Committee, A Sanctuary Under review: An Examination ofAustralia’s Refugee and Humanitarian Determination Processes. June 2000: www.aph.gov.au2 ‘Some’ is the operative word. Particular cases and people returning to particular risk situations have arouseddisquiet. It may well be true as the Refugee Council of Australia told the Senate Committee that itacknowledged that generally speaking people are able to return to their countries without difficulty. [11.26]3

Government Policy, Assessment, Evidence and Methodology. After an account ofCountries of High Risk, we present the research results under five main questions whichask whether Australia or its agencies have deported rejected asylum seekers to danger,sent incriminating reports about them overseas, been involved in the provision of falsepapers or acted against our laws and values.ISTORIESThese stories have been written with the permission of the rejected asylum seekersbut because many of them are still in danger, false names have been used and details ofsome places on the journeys and present whereabouts have been concealed.1 Rajab: AfghanRajab is a young Afghan man who fled from his country because of political andreligious divisions in his family and neighourhood. His father and grandfather were Shiaand Hazara and his mother and her father and brothers were Sunni and Pashtun. 3 After thedeath of the Shia grandfather and the mother’s conversion to Shia Islam, the Sunni unclesmade life impossible for the family. A group of people came to his home and killed hiselder brother and a week later Rajab’s father received a threat that persuaded the family tosend Rajab away: It is now your other son’s turn. This was the time that my father paid aperson who took me to a neighbouring country and sent me towards Australia.Like others rescued at sea by the Norwegian ship Tampa, Rajab was taken intodetention in Nauru. Describing conditions there, he refers to the lack of legal advice, thepoor standard of translations, the constant depression, isolation and uncertainty. When thequality of the food got worse, one Afghan on the staff told him this was a tactic to persuadethem to go home. The Afghans, he said, were told by UNHCR and IOM staff that they mustgo back to Afghanistan: because it is now the policy of Australia to send refugees back.However much your life will be in danger, you won’t be accepted.Another IOM staff member told them that in another country, refugees unwilling togo home had been drugged and sent back, adding ominously: So it may happen with you aswell. Finally the death of a young friend in the detention camp convinced him and others toleave Nauru because: one day all will die here like him … The staff of IOM came to me andsaid don’t resist. They will send you. If you didn’t go now, one day they will send you byforce. And really I had lost the hope of life. So I thought better to die in my own countrythan here.In Nauru, IOM had assured him and his companions that on arrival in Kabul theywould be taken to a special centre for returnees until they were able to move elsewhere. Infact, IOM only offered to take them to their homes but as their families had fled, this wasquite impossible for most of them and they asked to be taken to the promised centre. IOMthen told them that it was not yet ready and left them without any support, with little moneyand dressed in clothing appropriate for the heat of Nauru. It was snowing in Kabul.He and his companions then rented a room and went into hiding until they couldescape to other countries. He told us: I left home because throughout Afghanistan I am notsafe. I and few other boys found a rented room; we were hidden in this room and day by day3 The spelling of this word varies. It refers to the dominant ethnic group in Afghanistan and their language.The language of the Hazara people is Dari.4

utally beaten by the police, who eventually declared they would take the boy Mohammadas a hostage until his brothers were in their hands.Under this threat the boy was helped by his family to escape into Syria where hearrived without his identification documents which were ‘lost’ (probably stolen) as he washelped to cross the border by a people smuggler who was carrying the bag containing hispapers. When he opened his bag later the papers were missing. For two years he managed tosurvive without legal identity but then he was picked up by the police and put in prison. Hewas given two options: stay in prison or leave the country. Under that threat he set out forAustralia to seek asylum and arrived at Ashmore Reef.In Australia, DIMIA did not accept his story as a valid claim for protection. Whenhe appealed that decision at the RRT his claim was again rejected. The officials at DIMIAand at the RRT both told him that Australia would never give him a visa. Because of this,after being kept in detention for four years he agreed to leave Australia ‘voluntarily’.With two days’ notice he and others were deported to Iraq, accompanied by DIMIAofficials to Dubai and by IOM officials to Amman in Jordan. He believed that an IOMofficial would be accompanying them on the road journey to Baghdad; but in fact IOM leftthem at the Jordanian border. The escort paid the taxi driver for the full journey and paidmoney to a border guard also. They had been told beforehand that they would be escorted toa safe place near the home of one of them.Delayed at the border until late afternoon they travelled at dangerous speeds, with acurfew looming ahead. Eventually the driver stopped in a dark place, demanded moremoney, refused to continue, left them and set off to Jordan. Having found and paid foranother taxi they were finally deposited at a hospital near one of their homes. Mohammad,close to panic, rang his family to rescue him.To do this, they had to ignore the curfew and risk their own lives. On the return tripthey were stopped by Iraqi police, who discovered that Mohammad was without Iraqipapers. His Australian travel documents were unintelligible because in English. Threatenedwith arrest and prison he was forced to bribe them to be left free.On his return, Mohammad found his family in deep crisis: one brother had comehome emotionally broken while the other was missing believed dead. Large sums of moneyhad to be handed over to the Baath party police, while their small but prosperous businessalong with the family cars had all been sold to pay for bribes. The family now is inconsiderable debt with the threat of the current home being sold from under them hangingover their heads. The home is stripped of furniture to the point that even the beds have beensold. The young man graphically describes his own fearful situation in the still volatile andtragic environment of Iraq:I am in constant danger because I have no proper ID. To go out of the house isdangerous for me. I am unable to tell anyone where I have been for the last 4 years or that Ican speak English. I would be suspected of being a spy for the Americans.… If theAmericans find out I speak English there is the possibility that I will be coerced to work asan Interpreter. This would be dangerous for my family and me...To look for work without ID is difficult and dangerous… I am an added burden tomy family that is struggling to put food on the table for the children. Jobs in Iraq are inshort supply and the pay is poor... I cannot afford medication for myself, let alone for the7

family who need help too…. I have depression and a lot of headaches. I am often sick. Afterbeing away for so long and in detention centre, I feel ashamed that I am a burden to myfamily and I cannot help them very much.Baghdad is bleeding to death. Everything is destroyed, the people are very tired anddepressed. How do I come to terms with all the death and destruction I see every day?Baghdad was once a great and beautiful city now it looks like Kabul…destroyed. Thepeople have lost hope and they are humiliated beyond belief.5 Sharif: Bedoon 5 from KuwaitSharif is a Bedoon from Kuwait. Because Bedoons are not recognized as citizens inKuwait, he is stateless and has no claim on citizens’ rights there. Many other Bedoons inthe same situation have been allowed to stay in Australia, but Sharif’s application forrefugee status was rejected.After arrival in Australia, he spent three years in immigration detention. Then Sharifwas told that he could live safely in Syria. He had had more than enough of the conditionsin detention and took up what he understood as an offer of a safe place in Damascus. Hewas given an Australian Certificate of Identity, which the Australian government issues torejected asylum seekers for one-way travel from Australia.This Certificate of Identity he sent to a friend who purchased a visa for travel toSyria. The documents were sent back to the detention centre and held there by theauthorities until Sharif’s departure. He did not see the visa document until a member of theflight crew handed it to him 15 minutes before arrival in Damascus.He was shocked to find then that he had a Syrian visa valid only for a few months.There was also an instruction to report to the Public Security Department within 15 days ofarrival. He presented the document to Syrian Immigration along with the US$200Australian officials in the detention centre had told him to put inside the document to giveto Syrian border guards. He saw police take other detainees to jail on arrival. He soonunderstood that very soon he would be illegal in Syria. Removed from Australia as anunlawful non-citizen, he would now be an unlawful non-citizen in Syria.For three years Sharif lived underground in Syria, where he realized that the mannerof his arrival from Australia increased the risks to his safety. Renting a small flat, he paiddouble rent to the landlord and paid neighbours as well so that they would not report him tothe police. His brother in a First World country sent him US$200 a month to help himsurvive. He ventured out only in the evenings or to visit a Mosque nearby.While his successful application for asylum in a First World country was beingprocessed in 2004, he was arrested and taken to jail where he was beaten and tortured.When the First World Embassy was alerted, a senior official visited the jail and negotiatedSharif’s release. Within a week the stateless man had found a home, reunited with hisfamily in a First World country.5 For exlpanation of this term, see , Statelessness, p. 468

6 Martin: Rwandan 6Martin is a young Rwandan whose parents were killed in the 1994 genocide. Agedeleven, he escaped first to Mozambique, then by boat to Kenya where he lived on the streetsfor five years. Realizing that life was going nowhere and fearful of persecution in Rwanda,Martin stowed away with five others on a ship and ended up in Melbourne. He was then 16years old. He has never been to school, has never had a job and was lucky to be alive whenour interviewers spoke to him in 2004.On his arrival in Australia, the shipping company called the ImmigrationDepartment in Melbourne and Martin was sent to a detention centre where he remained fortwo and a half years. DIMIA rejected his appeal for refugee status and the RRT upheld thedecision. Martin lodged an appeal for a hearing before the Federal Court. However, beforethe date for the hearing arrived he lost the energy to face it, exhausted by his struggle forrecognition. He decided to give up trying and leave, because, he told us: bad things werehappening in my head.Asked about his understanding of why he was deported, he answered: I had nodocument and they say they don’t believe me. I didn’t understand…I never had aninterpreter. They said my language is Kenyan-Swahili not Rwandan-Swahili. They say I amnot who I say I am. They recorded my voice. On the evidence of the language reportapparently, he was rejected for speaking a Kenyan version of Swahili. This was only to beexpected when he had lived on the streets in Kenya from age 11 to 16, formative years inthe development of an accent.In 2002 he was sent back to Kenya, handcuffed to the seat on the plane from thedetention centre to Perth. Then he was escorted under guard to Johannesburg and on in aKenya Airlines plane to Nairobi, where he was met by an Australian Christian Brother and alawyer at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. They have no idea how he got throughImmigration in Nairobi. He had some emergency travel documents from the Australianauthorities but these were taken from him at the airport and once again he became stateless,without proof of identity.At customs, with Brother Sean and the lawyer watching, Martin was bailed up byplain-clothes police who said they had to detain him. They also expressed a close interest inhow much money he had (about $80 US). Somehow he managed to talk his way through,and spent his first hours out of detention at the Brothers’ house which he left the next day.A month later Martin left Kenya, trying to find some other more friendly Africancountry, running the risk of detention or worse as he crossed more borders without papers.He knows English fairly well and eventually was able to contact Australian friends whodiscovered that in an attempt to enter South Africa he and his companions were detained inthe notorious Lindella prison.He was detained again later when other young asylum seekers, in trouble with thepolice for petty crimes, occupied the house that had been rented for him by Australiansupporters. After harrowing experiences and court appearances he was eventually released.At present he is living in an African country where he does not feel safe because of his6 An earlier account of Martin’s story by Brother Sean McManus has been recorded in the COPAS CaseStudies, October 2002 available on www.opeast.org.au. This interview was conducted in July 20049

accent and the unpredictable behaviour of local police towards foreigners. He sees no wayahead other than stowing away again.7 Marian: Sri LankanMarian is a 75 year-old grandmother. She has four married children two of whomare Australian citizens and two are permanent residents. After living with her family inAustralia for five years Marian was forced to leave Australia after the Refugee Tribunalrejected her appeal for asylum along with those of her husband and unmarried daughter.Marian is a Burgher who married a Tamil man. Because they had crossed ethnicboundaries, in 1983 their house was set on fire and the family were harassed and threatenedfrom that day. She says: The RRT official told me that because I was a Burgher I would besafe in Sri Lanka. Yet my husband was a Tamil and he was standing next to me in the RRT.In Australia she was never in a detention centre and her family met all her expenses.She likes to say that she took not one cent from the Australian Government. After beingrejected the family did not have the money to pursue the case in higher courts so to leavewas their only option. Marian recalls: The RRT official told us, ‘you hardly ever hear ofbombimgs these days in Sri Lanka. It is no longer unsafe’. …They did not understand.The family presented a good deal of information to DIMIA and the RRT, includingpolice reports from Colombo outlining the harassment they had endured. They alsopresented reports from their parish priest in Colombo. The RRT did not accept thisevidence.After their return to Colombo the harassment began again. Stones were thrown at thehouse and threats against their safety were regularly made in the market and outside thehouse at night. Soon after their return Marian’s husband, aged 80, became very ill. He hadfound the trip back very taxing and the separation from the family in Australia traumatic.He was often too concerned for the safety of his wife and daughter to leave them to seekmedical care: He believed the man of the house should protect his family, she said. When heventured to the market he was pelted with stones.The people who harassed and attacked the family after their return knew they hadleft the country and come back. They would threaten him for money. They knew he had beenoutside. They threatened him – to give them money or else, she said. The women wereabused whenever they went to the shops. Her husband was soon hospitalised and died a fewweeks later. Now the two women are isolated in their house while all their family are livingin Sydney.Marian says they are not safe; she is too scared to leave the house: I need protection,and now my husband is dead and four of my children are married and living in Australiawith all my grandchildren. There is only my daughter and me and we are very frightened. Iam 75. They stand outside the house sometimes at night and yell threats at us. I am arecluse. I can’t go out on my own. If it does erupt the knife can go in an anywhere.As she spoke her eyes filled with tears. She does not understand why she wasrejected by Australia. She has lost her husband and feels she has also lost her four marriedchildren and all of her grandchildren. Her final words: I don’t know what to do. We are soscared here.10

8 Phillip: SudanesePhillip was born in Kuwait in 1979 to immigrant Sudanese parents. The family werebanished from Kuwait as non-citizens in 1990. Stateless, Phillip left Syria for Australia in2000 where he arrived without documents and was placed in detention. After three yearsthere, he was told by DIMIA that Sudan had accepted him and he was to be deported.Denied access to a lawyer he signed a statement that he was leaving voluntarily, in thebelief that he was to be accepted in Sudan.In December 2003 he was escorted by two Australian guards from the detentioncentre to Perth, whence he was escorted to Africa by two guards from a South AfricanCompany, P&I. Thus began one of the most bizarre episodes in Australian deportationhistory. It in fact received national coverage in the Australian press and was the subject of awell publicised cartoon in which Phillip, handcuffed to the Immigration Minister, iscounting up his Frequent Flyer points.In Johannesburg he was kept alone in a small room, denied access to human rightslawyers alerted by Australian friends. Next he was taken by one P&I guard to Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania. Lent a phone by an airport official, he contacted a friend in theAustralian detention centre, who alerted a priest, who phoned his sister in Dar-es-Salaam,who arranged for a lawyer to visit Phillip in a cell at the airport. The lawyer was told by theP&I guard that Phillip was locked up because he had committed a crime in Australia. In facthis entire time in Australia was spent locked in the detention centre.Eventually Phillip was informed that contrary to what DIMIA had told him, Sudanhad not accepted him, nor the travel document issued to him in Australia. Flown back toJohannesburg he remained locked up alone for a week, denied access to lawyers: I was keptin isolation. I had no proper place to sleep. I only had a few Australian dollars which couldnot buy food and water.A representative of the Kuwait government visited him to inform him that he wasineligible to apply for protection in Kuwait. Friends in Australia established that byInternational Law the country issuing the travel document was responsible for him.Meanwhile in Australia, DIMIA contacted Phillip’s friend in the detention centre toask was Phillip Indian? Or perhaps Fijian? The friend informed them, as Phillip had done onarrival, that he is a stateless person born to Sudanese parents in Kuwait. Next, Phillip wasflown back to Perth by two P&I guards and locked alone in a small room in the airport.Some weeks later, after several flights in and out of three countries, he wastransferred to a detention centre in South Australia, at the cost of about $24,000 to theAustralian tax-payer. Phillip was traumatized by his bizarre experience: My legal casecontinues. No country will have me. Now I am in prison and I have committed no crime.These stories of rejected asylum seekers define the landscape for this study. Theyshow the real dangers that faced those deported, the inhumane treatment of the deportationprocess, the use of false documents and the lack of regard for human dignity and dueprocess. They also show the happy outcomes for two of them, who have been givenpermanent protection in two First World countries after Australia had rejected them.Having defined the landscape, we now provide some relevant background to theresearch under four headings: Government Policy, Assessment, Evidence and Methodology.11

IIBACKGROUND1 Government PolicyBorder protection is a highly publicised part of the agenda of the currentGovernment of Australia. Removal is seen as the essential sanction for people who come orstay here without proper papers. Clearly no reasonable person would dispute Australia’ssovereign right to protect its borders and remove people who do not have valid visas.However, that right is not absolute. Australia is obligated under a variety of InternationalConventions which prohibit refoulement, the removal of rejected asylum seekers to placesin which they are unsafe. The legal obligations which limit border protection and the natureof what is covered by unsafe in this context are discussed later in this report.The present Government shows little interest in checking whether refoulementactually happens. The 2000 Senate Committee said that: some form of monitoring may bethe only way in which Australia can be assured that its refugee determination processesare correctly identifying genuine refugees and humanitarian cases. It recommended thatthe Government place the issue of monitoring on the agenda for discussion at the Inter-Government /Non-Government Organisations Forum with a view to examining theimplementation of a system of informal monitoring. 7 The Government has explicitlyrejected this advice (Recommendation 11.1) and told Parliament that what happens topeople when they are ‘removed’ from Australia is not of concern. 82 Assessment – The First StepThe processes leading to possible refoulement start with refugee assessment.Mistakenly to reject a valid refugee claim means to expose a person to the risk ofrefoulement on removal from Australia. As stated in one Court decision: When anadministrative decision under challenge is said to be one which may put the applicant’slife at risk, the basis of the decision must surely call for the most anxious scrutiny. 9There is considerable disquiet in Australia about the quality of this anxiousscrutiny in primary assessment processes in DIMIA and the administrative review processin the Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT). Although it is outside the competence of thisstudy to make findings about the correctness or otherwise of assessments in specific cases,it is important to note some of the evidence suggesting systemic problems in refugeeassessment. This is a relevant background to the interviews with deportees recorded in thisreport.The 2000 Senate Committee collected a great deal of evidence from reputablebodies who were concerned about poor or biased decision-making. The Refugee Council7 The Senate Committee 2000 (op.cit.) Par 11.36. The Committee did not recommend a Governmentmonitoring process. It took into account state sovereignty issues, diplomatic ramifications if Australianofficials should formally monitor foreign nationals in overseas countries and potential dangers to thereturned persons arising from such official attention. It recognized that UNHCR is not resourced for the taskand finally made Recommendation 11.1 that the task be undertaken by NGOs in consultation withGovernment.8Where it is assessed as part of the protection determination process that that there is no real chance ofpersecution of the applicant on return, Australia is not responsible for the future well being of that person intheir homeland. Senate Hansard 8 February 2001- Government Response to the Senate Committee 2000 inrelation to Recommendation 11.1.9 NASS v Minister for Immigration [2002] FMCA 350 (9 January 2003) par 11. Raphael FM quotes LordBridge.12

of Australia, National Legal Aid, Law Council of Australia, Amnesty International,Refugee Council of Western Australia, Legal Aid Western Australia, Kingsford LegalCentre, The Refugee and Immigration Legal Centre, The South Brisbane Immigration andCommunity Legal Service 10 all gave evidence about inadequate or dangerous decisionmaking practices in DIMIA. The Senate Committee accepted many of these criticisms andmade clear recommendations for improvement. 11 Unfortunately, the Government, indefending the current system, virtually sidestepped all of these recommendations. 12Criticisms of the RRT to the Senate Committee were also made by a group of legaland human rights advocates, by lawyers and by retired members of the RRT itself.Responding to their concerns the Committee made eight recommendations. These relatedto: availability of information on the nature and operation of the tribunal; the selection andtraining of members to improve skills and reduce the possibility of bias; the provision ofappropriate resources.Most importantly, the Committee also recommended panels of two to three membersat the discretion of the Senior Member 13 as is the norm on many other administrativereview tribunals in Australia. The Committee’s argument in favour of multimember panelsprovides an indication of its concerns about RRT functioning. The Committee argued thatenlarged tribunals could improve members’ performance in relation to:• the need to have proper and consistent application of the law so as to addressthe causes for appeals to the Federal Court on points of law;• the risk of bias in decisions with balance provided by other panel members;• the risk that all relevant country information is not taken into account;• the need to properly undertake the inquisitorial nature of refugee andhumanitarian application reviews. 14 [Underline emphasis added]Other evidence about the fallibility of the RRT comes from cases in which Courtsset aside RRT decisions. 15 Some cases demonstrate a tragic breakdown in the properprocess of merits review. The NASS case is one such example. In this case an RRT101112131415The Senate Committee 2000 (op.cit.) Chapter 4 especially pages 120, 123, 125, 132, 133, 134, and 135.Ibid. Recommendations 4.1, 4.3,4.4, 4.6 of the Senate Committee concerned the retention and provision ofinitial DIMIA interviews, improved training for DIMIA interviewers before and during their tenure,provision of reasons for making decisions on the papers without interview of the applicant, the collectionof accurate and up-to-date information from a broad cross-section of Government and non-governmentsources and the training of staff in rapid information retrieval, information analysis and methods of criticalevaluation. The Committee also made recommendations about resourcing.Senate Hansard. The Government reply to the Senate Committee above was tabled on 8 February 2001;the recommendations were dismissed mainly as current practice. The resource recommendations weresaid to have been dealt with prior to the Senate Committee or were unnecessary.The Senate Committee 2000 (op.cit.) Recommendation 5.4: The Committee recommends that the RefugeeReview Tribunal be able to sit as a single member body and as a panel of two and up to three members asappropriately determined by a Senior, or the Principal, Member. Members would be drawn from peoplewith appropriate backgrounds for considering refugee and humanitarian applications.Ibid. Par. 5.109On average in the decade since 1993-94, 15.36 % of RRT decisions have been set aside by the courts – 824cases. The RRT increasingly agrees with the primary decision of DIMIA so that currently (2003) onlyabout 6.0% of primary decisions are set-aside in the RRT. This compares with 24 % in favour of applicantsin 1998-1999. Increasingly, disappointed applicants appeal to the Courts, but among these larger numbers,the proportion that has the RRT decision overturned is becoming smaller. In absolute terms, the numbershaving RRT decisions set aside have dropped from 467 cases in 1998-99 to only 69 cases in 2002-03.Legislation restricting the basis of judicial appeal has probably been a significant influence in reducing theset aside rate, as have management initiatives in the RRT. RRT web page www.rrt.gov.au is the source ofthese statistics.13

As an alternative, Mr Sidoti also called for random checks based on riskassessment factors to decide where Australia should be monitoring returnees and wherenot. We decided to follow this approach and interview returnees from relatively high-riskcountries of origin or currently residing in other high-risk countries. Initially we hoped tocontact returnees through people with whom they were linked in Australia, but few suchlinks survive the deportation process. We then began travelling to overseas countries tocontact deportees directly. This has been a difficult process, since many rejected asylumseekers are currently in danger while others are so traumatized by their experience herethat they refused to speak to Australian interviewers.3 MethodologyTo provide comparable data, interviews were conducted on a standardized format.Where possible we sought corroborative material evidence to check the returnee’s story.Where we could not find this and to control for any possible collusive fabrication, welooked to see if the pattern of an account was mirrored in independent interviews withother returnees in similar situations. We have also checked the internal consistency ofeach account given us, a strategy also used by the Refugee Review Tribunal in assessingcredibility. We are satisfied that our data provide a reliable case for the Government toanswer.To date we have interviewed 40 people in eleven overseas countries. We have alsodrawn on reliable accounts from deportee contacts and expert respondents in Australia.We have interview material from a further 10 people but because of safety concerns theirdetails are confidential to the researchers.IIICOUNTRIES OF HIGH RISKThe people we interviewed came from the following States with the high-riskprofiles noted below. These include Afghanistan, Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo,Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Rwanda, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Zimbabwe. Ouraccounts, for the most part, are based on the reports from NGOs such as Human RightsWatch and Amnesty International.AFGHANISTANThe establishment of the Hamid Karzai Government ended the tyranny of theTaliban, but areas outside Kabul are still considered to be without effective civilgovernment and subject to lawlessness and insecurity. Despite some successes in restoringessential governance, improving basic security, and building systems to ensure the rule oflaw, Afghanistan still has a tenuous human rights situation. 24 While the new constitutionadopted in January 2004 includes significant protections, human rights practices have notimproved markedly or indeed at all in large parts of the country. Life outside of Kabul isdominated by military faction leaders, the Afghanistan warlords and in some areas the reemergingTaliban, heavily financed by the opium trade.In most areas outside the capital, independent political movements and media havebeen stifled. In many areas it is impossible to form political groups or freely publishnewspapers or broadcast radio without incurring the wrath of local warlord leaders. Womenand girls especially are suffering from insecurity and lack of protection. In some areas,24 Human Rights Watch, January 200415

security and human rights conditions have worsened and most warlords have become moreentrenched. On August 15, 2004, for instance, The New York Times reported the death of 21people, including two senior Defence Ministry commanders, in attacks directed at theProvincial Governor in heavy factional fighting in the western province of Herat, the fief ofthe powerful warlord Ismail Khan. 25The list of documented violations is extensive. Local security and police forces,even in Kabul city, are involved in arbitrary arrests, kidnapping and extortion, torture andextra-judicial killings of criminal suspects. Outside of Kabul, commanders and their troopsare implicated in extortion, intimidation of political dissidents, rape of women and girls,rape of boys, murder, illegal detention and forced displacement, as well as specific abusesagainst women and children, including trafficking, sexual violence, and forced marriage.High-level commanders in Kabul, Kandahar, Herat, and other cities are also involved inproperty seizures and forced displacement.In the south and southeast of the country, Taliban remnants and other antigovernmentforces outside Afghanistan's political framework have further aggravatedsecurity conditions by attacking humanitarian workers and Coalition and Afghangovernment forces. In 2003 and early 2004, numerous humanitarian workers in the southand southeast have been kidnapped, beaten up, shot at or killed. Over thirty-five schools inthe south and southeast, mostly for girls, have been rocketed or burned since August 2002.As a result of attacks on humanitarian workers international agencies havesuspended many of their operations in the affected areas. Recently Human Rights Watchnoted that this has endangered the delivery of assistance to those most in need of it.Afghans may well see themselves as forgotten by the international community. 26ANGOLAThere have been substantial improvements in parts of Angola since the end of thirtyyears of civil war but Human Rights watch reports that serious human rights abusescontinue in the interior of the country. 27 These include violations of freedom of expressionand association, lack of due process in criminal cases, poor prison conditions, forcedevictions, AIDS-related discrimination. The government continues to harass journalists,human rights groups and other NGOs.Conflict continues between the government and separatist groups in oil-richCabinda, the province excluded from the Peace Agreements of Luena and the LusakaProtocols. There is little U.N. involvement to prevent abuses of the laws of war in thisfighting. Millions of displaced people face great hardship. Landmines scattered throughoutthe country have killed or maimed hundreds. Some people have been forced to return homeor to leave resettlement camps, contrary to international standards now incorporated intoAngolan law.Levels of corruption remain high. Between 1997 and 2002 more than four billiondollars of state oil revenue have disappeared. This has undermined Angolans’ civil,25 Carlotta Gall, New York Times, August 15, 200426 Human Rights Watch , Press Release, June 7 200427 Human Rights Watch, ‘ Overview of Human Rights Issues in Angola’, January 1, 200416

political, economic, social and cultural rights. There are high levels of poverty andexclusion, widespread disease and a shattered infrastructure. 28DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGOFive years of civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo ended officially inJune 2003 with the establishment of the transitional Government of National Unity.However, the political situation is still unstable, the economy has collapsed, levels ofunemployment and crime are very high. In the east, particularly in Bukavu, Kivu, Ituri andNorthern Katanga, fighting has continued. According to Human Rights Watch 29 theviolence in Bukavu continues a pattern of deteriorating security and massive violations ofinternational human rights and humanitarian law. Rebellious factions from former rebelgroups whose leaders are now participating in the transitional government are challengingthe government’s authority and refusing integration into the new DRC army.HRW have documented war crimes and other human rights abuses, includingsummary executions. Both sides are guilty of rape and looting. Some of the violence doeshave an ethnic basis but HRW observers consider that ethnicity is often used to cover othermotives for action in Eastern DRC. The Banyamulenge people, an ethnic minority inBukavu, descended from migrants from Rwanda and Burundi, attract hostility from otherCongolese who see them as Rwandan. Rwanda has often posed as the protector of theBanyamulenge; but in 2002 Rwanda attacked their homelands and killed scores of civilians.Rwanda and Uganda, major powers in eastern DRC for four years, havewithdrawn their troops 30 but continue to exercise political power and exploit Congoleseresources for their own profit. The U.N. Secretary General and his Special Representativein the Congo, Ambassador William Swing, in March 2004 pressed for more action fromthe U.N. and the international community to overcome the remaining obstacles to peace.Distrust among those sharing power in the transitional process and those who are outsideit suggest that violence and human rights abuses are likely to continue.Before elections planned for 2005, the DRC needs an administration that protectscitizens’ rights and a judicial system capable of dealing with past and current abuses ofhuman rights. The government faces a major challenge to establish both.IRANPolitical and religious dissent is punished very harshly in Iran often with death orcruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Rights to freedom of speech, press, assembly andassociation are severely restricted. Discrimination is experienced by ethnic minoritiessuch as Azeris and Kurds and by religious minorities: Sunni Muslims, Bahais. Christians,Jews, Mandaeans and Yaresans. Conversion from Islam is not permitted. The judiciary isnot independent and often acts as an arm of government policy. Vigilante groups practiseintimidation and violence with tacit support of members of government.In particular jeopardy are critics of the government, dominated by the Shia clergy,and people who do not conform to the rigid Islamic dress and behavioral codes. Afghanand to a lesser extent Iraqi refugees are systematically denied the means to subsist by28 Human Rights Watch, ‘The Use of Oil Revenue in Angola and its Impact on Human Rights’, January 13,200429 Human Rights Watch, Briefing Paper, June 200430 Human Rights Watch, Press Release, July 14, 200417

ecent Iranian laws intended to reduce the large refugee populations hosted by Iran.Support for this description may be found in the footnoted reports by the US StateDepartment, United Nations, US based Human Rights Watch, The Australian RefugeeCouncil, Amnesty International and the Australian Uniting Church sponsored DeportationTask Group. 31 These accounts contrast sharply with the more sanguine report of DFAT’s(Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade) Fact Sheet on Iran, possibly affected by thedesire to protect Australia’s trading interests.Human Rights Watch recently 32 noted arbitrary arrest, detention without trial,torture to extract confessions, prolonged solitary confinement, physical and psychologicalabuse as examples of current violations of the human rights of political detainees in Iran.The same day a HRW press release called for the release of university students who havebeen in prison since 1999.IRAQThe official human rights situation in Iraq changed markedly with the fall of theregime of Saddam Hussein but the resultant murderous civil disorder and dislocation ofnormal services make it problematic for any returnees. In addition, some are still afraid ofreprisals from those who forced them to flee in the first place.UNHCR estimates that there are up to a million Iraqis displaced in their owncountry and approximately 500,000 refugees still abroad. A statement received at the UNoffice in Sydney dated August 19, 2004 indicates that the UNHCR office in Amman doesnot encourage Iraqi refugees to return home at present because conditions within Iraq arenot conducive to receiving them. In the north alone 20% of the people are lackingadequate housing.Concern for human rights has been inconsistent in the US led military operationbut since the claims about weapons of mass destruction have lost credibility the oldregime’s abuse of human rights is being cited as justification for the war. A full year afterthe war was declared to be over a woman in Baghdad lamented, to her sister in Australia,the fact that there is still no security; that the Iraqi culture is not respected by the Coalitionauthorities, who compromise with the religious clerics in ways detrimental to women. 33 Inthe present volatile situation women and girls are especially vulnerable. Although thestate-ordered beheadings of women accused of dishonouring their country have ceased,violence against women has increased in the breakdown of law and order since the end ofSaddam’s regime. Radical armed groups are numerous. Extremists are threatening womenwho do not observe Islamic dress codes or who are activists for human rights. Cases ofabduction, rape and murder have left many women and girls unwilling to leave theirhomes for fear of meeting a similar fate. Parents are afraid to send their daughters toschool or university, freedoms they enjoyed under the old regime. 3431 US State Department, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices (2001) Iran; UNHCR Report on thesituation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran prepared by the Special Representative of theCommission on Human Rights, Mr. Maurice Danby Copithorne Document No E/CN.42002/42; HumanRights Watch By Invitation Only- Australian Asylum Policy 2003; Amnesty International AnnualReport Iran 2002; Refugee Council of Australia Report on RCOA’s Second Field Visit To IranSeptember 200232 Human Rights Watch, Report, June 7, 200433 Amnesty International, Human Rights Defender, vol 23 number 3, June/July 200434 ibid.18

The US State Department declared on International Women’s Day 2004 that:Women’s rights and opportunities are a major focus of the US support for Iraq’stransition to democracy. However, the determination of some extremists to deprivewomen of a place in government is demonstrated by the killing in September 2003 ofAquila al-Hashimi, one of the three women in the Iraqi Governing Council. In March2004 an assassination attempt was also made on the life of Nisreen Mustafa al-Burwari,the only woman in the Iraqi cabinet.The complexity of the situation in Iraq is difficult to comprehend but not difficultto acknowledge. There are elements of the present reality attributable to the tyranny ofSaddam Hussein; elements arising from ethnic diversity and cultural loyalties; elementsattributable to the interference of modern European powers pursuing their own interests inthe region and redrawing its borders; elements attributable to the hostile encounters ofIslam and Christianity in the so-called Middle Ages; elements arising from divisionswithin Islam itself; elements dating from the ancient civilisations of the region.KUWAITDespite the fact that Kuwait agreed to improve its regime of human rights violationsafter the 1990-1991 Iraqi occupation, the Bedoons have continued to face discrimination.Tens of thousands of Bedoons have lived for many years in Kuwait, large numbers of themfor generations. Kuwaiti nationality has been denied them explicitly since 1985 when theywere excluded from the census and declared to be non-Kuwaiti. Their rights to education,work, marriage and freedom of movement are extremely limited.Although there were nearly 37,000 Bedoons eligible to apply for naturalisation, thelaw limited to 2000 the number of those who could receive nationality in any one year.Therefore, many who were eligible faced discrimination indefinitely. The governmentobliged those who were ineligible to register themselves as foreigners. Within less than 2months prosecution began and those who had not registered faced possible deportation. 35Women in particular have suffered abuse, both physical and sexual, anddiscrimination in matters of marriage and inheritance. Serious crimes against womenreceived light penalties or were not punished at all. For women in domestic work who hadno law to protect them there was danger of abuse by employers.Writers and journalists suffered under laws open to a wide spectrum ofinterpretation. They were vulnerable to charges of offending in the areas of religion,morality, security and personal attack. Sanctions ranged from fines to prison sentences andthe banning of their published work.In March 2003 the Executive Director of HRW for the region wrote to the Amir ofKuwait to suggest that Kuwait examine and then ratify the International Convention on theProtection of the Rights of all Migrant Workers and Members of their Families. He pointedout that both Egypt and Morocco had ratified the Convention. Statistics quoted in the lettershowed that almost 65% of the Kuwaiti population were migrants who formed more than80% of the work force. Almost one third of the migrants were women. 3635 Human Rights Watch, World Report 200136 H. Megally, in a letter to Human Rights Watch, 200319

Although the July 2003 elections still excluded women from the right to vote orstand as candidates the Prime Minister announced his intention to help women gain morepolitical rights. However, as recently as December 2003 no change had been reported. 37NIGERIAAfter decades of military rule ending in 1999, Nigeria eventually formed a transitiongovernment in 2003. However, impunity for human rights violations and the Nigeriangovernment's unwillingness to go beyond lip-service to human rights continue to beobstacles to meaningful reform four years after the end of military rule. The police continueto commit numerous extra-judicial killings, acts of torture, and arbitrary arrests. Opponentsand critics of the government have been arrested, beaten, harassed, and intimidated.Scores of people were killed in political violence related to the elections in April-May 2003. Ongoing inter-communal tensions, especially in the oil-producing Niger delta,are still a cause of recurring violence. No one has yet been brought to justice for themassacre of hundreds of people by the military in Odi, Bayelsa State, in 1999 and in BenueState in 2001. Sharia (Islamic law) courts in the north continue to hand down deathsentences and amputation sentences; however, since 2002 such sentences have not alwaysbeen implemented.Corruption is still pervasive at all levels, leading directly to violations of social andeconomic rights; the political elite continue to amass wealth at the expense of the vastmajority of Nigerians who live in extreme poverty. Support for this description may befound in Human Rights Watch, UNHCR and Amnesty International reports whichhighlight election-related violence, 38 police brutality, loss of freedom of expression,conflict in the Niger delta and human rights concerns in the context of Sharia law.PAKISTANHuman Rights Watch 39 reports that while the situation in Pakistan under PresidentMusharraf’s rule has the appearance of legality, human rights issues there are causinggrave concern. HRW cites harassment and intimidation of the media; increasing sectarianviolence; discrimination in law and mistreatment of women and religious minorities;torture and mistreatment of political opponents; lack of due process in the ‘war on terror’.Freedom of the press has been undermined first by arrest of local and regionaleditors and reporters on charges of sedition; but the government has more recently movedto silence national and international journalists viewed as critical of the regime. RasheedAzam, journalist and activist, is in prison charged with sedition, alleging abuse andtorture. Two French journalists arrested in Karachi on December 16, 2003 were releasedafter protests by human rights groups and allowed to leave the country.Sunni extremists target Shia Muslims, particularly doctors. The blasphemy lawsare an instrument of persecution for religious minorities such as the Ahmadi, Hindus andChristians. Anyone can file a blasphemy complaint with the police. A First IncidentReport is then compiled without any supporting evidence. Six Ahmadis await hearing oftheir appeals against 2002 sentences of death or life imprisonment.37 Amnesty International, Report, 200438 Human Rights Watch, Report, June 2, 200439 Human Rights Watch, ‘Overview of human rights in Pakistan’, January 1, 200420

Under the Hudood Ordinance criminal prosecution for rape can happen only iffour Muslim men testify as witnesses of the act. The National Commission for Status ofWomen has called for the repeal of the Ordinance which, they say: makes a mockery ofIslamic justice and is not based on Islamic injunctions. There is evidence also oftrafficking of poor women and girls for prostitution and exploitive work.Torture is used after abduction by military agencies in Pakistan to punish politicians,political activists, critical journalists. The purpose is to frighten victims into changing theirloyalties or ceasing criticism of the military authorities. Under threat of this treatment beingrepeated, victims can be kept in a state of perpetual fear. Rana Sanaullah Khan, oppositionlegislator, has been through this experience twice. In the ‘war on terror’ international anddomestic standards of due process have not always been observed. People arrested onsuspicion of terrorism are often detained without charge. Trials are often conducted withoutdue judicial process.Pakistan’s government remains heavily dependent on the United States for botheconomic and military aid. It points to pressures from hard-line religious groups andmilitant organisations to excuse its failure to uphold human rights. Without pressure on thePakistani government from international supporters the situation is unlikely to improve. Itconstitutes real danger for citizens and non-citizens alike who are members of groupstargeted by extremists or discriminatory laws.RWANDATen years after the Rwandan genocide, The Observer drew attention to the presentsituation in Rwanda as described by Juliane Kippenberg of the African Division of HRWafter a recent visit to Kigali 40 . In 1994 at least half a million people were murdered in thegenocidal conflict. The victor, the Rwandan Patriotic Front, still dominates the parliamentand has declared itself opposed to anyone propagating genocide. This provided a pretext fordissolving the chief opposition party before the 2003 presidential elections and foroccupying eastern Congo for four years.In mid 2004 the government is moving to dissolve the country’s most significanthuman rights organisation, the League for the Promotion and Defence of Human Rights,called by the French acronym Liprodhor. In justification, the parliament declares thatLiprodhor ‘supports genocidal ideas’. In fact Liprodhor has long been a defender of therights of all Rwandans without distinction. Before 1994 its calls for international action toprevent the looming genocide went unheeded. Through the last decade it has monitoredgenocide trials in the interests of securing justice. In July Human Rights Watch urged thegovernment not to proceed against Liprodhor 41 .Kippenberg reports that people in Kigali are afraid of the implications: If they can dothis to Liprodhor, what will become of us? Many activists have had to leave Rwandaalready. Without Liprodhor, those remaining may be silenced altogether. The Britishgovernment, the largest single donor to Rwanda, has apparently raised some concernsprivately with the government, but to no effect. The silence of the international communitywhich accompanied the genocide ten years ago continues today. Meanwhile civil society inRwanda is being stifled.40 Juliane Kippenberg, ‘Rwanda Still in Our Human Rights Blind Spot’, The Observer, July 25 200441 Human Rights Watch, Press release, July 7, 200421

SOUTH AFRICASouth Africa’s constitution upholds the principles of dignity, equality and nondiscriminationfor everyone in the country, including asylum seekers. There now exists aninstitutional and policy framework for the promotion of human rights. However, while thegovernment is struggling to secure the human rights of its own citizens it is faced with anincreasing number of refugees from oppressive and violent regimes in other Africancountries. Given the extent and depth of the nation’s internal problems it is unsurprisingthat refugees are regarded by many South Africans as an unwelcome burden.People seeking asylum in South Africa are given an Asylum Seeker Permit. Thispermit entails no government assistance and must be renewed regularly. Police can demandto see it at any time, and have been known to tear it up. Foreigners, particularly Africanforeigners, are easily recognisable on the streets, so they are vulnerable targets for abuse ordiscrimination in a populace where unemployment, poverty, homelessness are widespread.Human rights lawyers have encountered evidence of xenophobia at various levels withininstitutional structures.In August 2002 a Joint Ministerial Statement in Support of Mutual Cooperationbetween South Africa and Australia on Migration, Refugees, Irregular Migration andPeople Smuggling was signed by the Hon. M. Buthelezi, Minister for Home Affairs, and theHon P. Ruddock, Minister for Immigration. A significant section details TransitArrangements for Returnees.In practice, an international commercial company, P and I / SMI, in collaborationwith the governments, is involved in the transit arrangements, receiving deportees fromAustralia into South Africa and passing them across borders without assumingresponsibility for their ultimate safety. This raises serious questions about the obligationsand responsibilities of the two governments concerned. Some people deported in thismanner have had no option but to become refugees a second timeIn sum, the position of asylum seekers in South Africa can be very insecure. 42While their asylum seeker permit is current they will not be deported; but they have noguarantee that the permit will be renewed; and it could be revoked. Many of them have noother document establishing their identity. Meanwhile they have little claim on citizens’rights or on the national purse. Their survival is often dependent on the goodwill andsupport of individual citizens or NGOs committed to their cause.SRI LANKAA twenty year civil war between government forces and the separatist movementLiberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has already cost more than 60,000 lives. Bothsides in the conflict have been responsible for serious violations of human rights, includingindiscriminate suicide bombings by the LTTE, torture and ‘disappearances’ by governmentsecurity forces and affiliated paramilitaries.In February 2002 the Norwegian Government facilitated a joint cease-fire accordand a peace process began in Thailand in September. A Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission(SLMM), with representatives from Nordic countries, was set up to monitor the42Sources: Interviewers’ personal observations and conversations with members of Lawyers for HumanRights during a visit in July 2004. HRW Report for 2004 points to the dangerous situation in overcrowdedprisons and corrupt police.22

implementation of the accord. After six rounds of talks the LTTE withdrew fromnegotiations in April 2003. In August 2003 Human Rights Watch noted the LTTE wereapparently taking advantage of immunity under the cease-fire to attack opponents. Humanrights groups reported at least 38 people killed or abducted since the 2002 accord andhundreds more threatened, assaulted or injured. Torture in police custody anddisappearances continued. 43In March 2004 a faction led by Colonel Karuna, a former eastern commander, brokeaway from the LTTE. In April this factional uprising was subdued by LTTE in the firstmajor fighting since the cease-fire began. The forces of both sides included many childsoldiers, some of whom were killed. UNICEF reported 209 were released on their parents’demand, 800 went home when Karuna’s force disbanded. In June 2004 Human RightsWatch noted that LTTE was recruiting these children again, and called on UNICEF and theSLMM to intervene for their safety.In May 2004 the UPFA government and the LTTE committed themselves publiclyand in discussion with the Norwegian facilitators to resume negotiations. On July 27Human Rights Watch warned that factional strife within the LTTE was continuing. In theprevious month more than a dozen murders, apparently politically motivated, wereattributed to one side or the other. 44 The situation in Sri Lanka in late 2004 poses a threat tothe safety or even the life of any refugee with links to either side or faction in the continuingconflict. The same threat is present for any refugee who defected from either side to seekasylum elsewhere.SUDANThe latest phase in the long-running history of conflict in the Sudan is alreadytwenty years old. While a peace agreement in April 2004 facilitated by the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) is designed to resolve the conflictbetween the government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A),a new crisis has developed in the western region of Darfur. Early in 2003 armed conflictbegan in Darfur between the government in alliance with ethnic Arab militias calledJanjaweed and two non-Arab African rebel groups: Sudanese Liberation Army/Movement(SLA/SLM) and the Justice and Equity Movement (JEM). 45In June 2004 Human Rights Watch reported that hundreds of witnesses andvictims attest that the government is ‘hand-in-glove’ with the Janjaweed, supporting themwith uniforms, salaries, equipment, reconnaissance and aerial bombing. Together thegovernment forces and Janjaweed have mounted a systematic campaign against unarmedcivilians of the rebels’ ethnic groups, chiefly the Fur, Masaalit and Zaghawa people.These people have been driven from their homes and farms and their villages burned. 46A major HRW report in August 2004 records that atrocities continue, rape,assaults and looting being daily occurrences. On July 30 the U.N. Security Councildemanded that the government disarm the Janjaweed. The government’s response,described by HRW as the height of absurdity, has been to incorporate them instead intoofficial state security units to protect civilians in ‘safe areas’ under a new ‘Plan of Action’43 Human Rights Watch, August 200344 Human Rights Watch, July 27, 200445 Human Rights Watch, Special Focus, June 21, 200446 Human Rights Watch, Briefing Paper, July 20, 200423

agreed by the government and the U.N. special representative in early August. This planwas not agreed by the two rebel groups.Meanwhile the Janjaweed maintain sixteen heavily armed bases, five shared withthe Sudanese army and several within reach of camps for Internally Displaced Persons.Residents of the IDP camps testify that both Janjaweed and government soldiers havebeen targeting these camps for further rape, robbery, extortion and killings. Some of thebases have been set up in villages from which the Janjaweed and government forces haddriven out the inhabitantsThis report also notes that conflict has extended to and beyond the Chad border,which has become militarized on both sides. There thousands of refugees and theirlivestock attract opportunistic raids and looting. Aid agencies have warned that the ethniccleansing campaign in Darfur has already cost thousands of lives; and that hundreds ofthousands more may die of starvation and disease without unhindered access to fullyfunded aid.Khartoum claims it cannot disarm or control the Janjaweed, while still refusing toallow adequate international forces in to protect civilians and stabilize the situation. Aninternational inquiry is called for into the abuses in Darfur, including allegations ofgenocide, and for international monitoring of any trial procedures there. 47 Human RightsWatch believes the U.N. Security Council should reject the ‘safe areas’ plan because,given the government’s record, these areas could be used to consolidate the ethniccleansing that has taken place in Darfur instead of giving real protection to civilians.HRW believes that the key to civilian security is controlling abusive government forcesand militias and that this is only to be achieved by an increased international presencethroughout Darfur.HRW called on the U.N. Security Council to use Chapter VII of the U.N. Charterto mandate the African Union to increase the number of troops in Darfur and extend itsmandate to include protection of civilians. 48 On September 19 it was reported (ABC TVnews) that the Security Council had ordered Sudan to restore order in Darfur or face oilindustry sanctions.SYRIASyria has not signed the Refugee Convention and has no domestic laws to protectIraqi, Bedoon or Afghan refugees living there. Iraqi refugees are theoretically eligible fora visitor’s visa for up to six months. Like over 3000 accepted applicants waiting forUNHCR resettlement, they might just be successful in this claim. However, many do notmake this application because of justifiable fears of long delays and being identified andrefouled by the Syrian authorities in the process.They then live very precariously without legal status, with severe restrictions onemployment and freedom of movement, denial of access to health care, education andhousing, combined with constant risks of arrest, detention and deportation. Undocumentedrefugees are very vulnerable to harassment and extortion by the Syrian police, threateningarbitrary arrest or refoulement. This is particularly true of the Bedoons. Support for this47 Human Rights Watch, ‘Empty Promises: Continuing Abuses in Darfur, Sudan’, August 200448 Human Rights Watch, ‘Safe Areas’ Offer No Real Security, September 1, 2004, hrw-news-africa@topica.emailpublisher.com24

description may be found in the footnoted reports 49 of the US State Department, HumanRights Watch, UNHCR and Amnesty International.ZIMBABWEThe political situation in Zimbabwe has gradually deteriorated since 1996, whenRobert Mugabe won another six years in government. At the beginning of 1999, popularfrustration with economic mismanagement and increasing corruption led to the formationof the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), with a strong base in the unions andsupport from commercial farming interests. When the MDC won 57 of the 120 electiveparliamentary seats in the June 2000 poll, Mugabe moved to remove or suppress hisopponents in the judiciary, the media and other centres of influence. 50Now Zimbabwe is in a parlous state, with the economy all but collapsed and thegovernment manipulating widespread famine so that the people in opposition strongholdssuffer most. Strong military backing is used for the forced removal of white farmers in abrutal land redistribution programme, which has earned President Mugabe widespread scorninternationallyIn October 2004 the Government is set to table in Parliament the Non-GovernmentalOrganisations Draft Bill. It is proposed so to limit the activities of the NGOs in the area ofhuman rights issues as to render them ineffectual. If the leader of an NGO were found to bein breach of this law, he or she would be dealt with at the discretion of the Minister. Therewould be no recourse to a court. This proposed law would seem to contradict theGovernment’s July undertaking to enact legislation on electoral reforms. Such reformswould have to support respect for the civil liberties of citizens. These include ‘freedoms ofassociation and expression’ which would be denied under the proposed NGO Draft Bill.In July 2004 Pretoria News 51 reported strong criticisms of President Mugabe’sregime by Zimbabwean clerics and a human rights lawyer: Archbishop Pius Ncube ofBulawayo, Rev Kumbukani Phiri of the Zimbabwe Pastors Conference, Jonah Gokova ofthe Ecumenical Support Services and Jacob Mafume of Lawyers for Human Rights. Thefour predicted an escalation of violence in the approach to the elections next March. Newlaws will prevent the opposition from campaigning, as it is now illegal for two or morepeople to meet to discuss politics or to organise any protest or demonstration withoutpolice approval. Their criticism extended to the African Union for doing nothing tochallenge President Mugabe to end the repression in Zimbabwe.49Human Rights Watch By Invitation Only- Australian Asylum Policy 2003; US State Department, ‘ Country Reportson Human Rights Practices 2002: Kuwait’ 31 March 2003; UNHCR, ‘ Chapter 6: Statelessness and Citizenship’in The State of the World’s Refugees: A Humanitarian Agenda, 1997; Amnesty International Index MDE13/027/2003 7 August 2003(on recent refoulements from Syria to Iran)50 Human Rights Watch, ‘Under a Shadow: Civil and Political rights in Zimbabwe’, Briefing Paper, June 6,200451 ‘Comment’, in Pretoria News, p.17, July 8, 200425

IVTHE RESEARCH QUESTIONS1 Has the Australian Government or its agencies sent or attempted to sendasylum seekers to unsafe places?Our answer to this question has to be Yes. We cannot say how frequently it hashappened; but among the people we interviewed overseas, many of them were in seriousdanger as a result of our deportation arrangements. For some, the danger met themimmediately on arrival at their destination or at an intermediate port; for others, the dangerarose as they tried to live in the country to which Australia had sent them. There are alsotwo cases of people being threatened with deportation to Zimbabwe and Iraq, where theyclaim they would have faced immediate danger.The strategy in this section is to provide examples of danger to deportees on arrivaland after arrival in various countries and then to give a summary in statistical form. Table Igives details of safety by nationality of deportees and Table II in Appendix 1 gives detailsof all 40 rejected asylum seekers. For convenience in analysis, we have used code numbersfor each of our Interviewees, using the initials of Interviewers.A. Danger immediately on arrival on the deportation journey.Danger presents itself in many forms. Physical danger was our originalunderstanding of the word when asking this question; but as the research proceeded itbecame obvious that psychological danger was just as important and perhaps moredamaging in the end.For instance, the four Afghans removed from Christmas Island to Nauru, (C8, C9,C10, CI1), tell stories of their depression, physical and psychiatric illness, isolation,frustration at the flawed translations of UNHCR, the sense of hopelessness and injustice atthe lack of access to lawyers and due process. One of them reports that when they askedfor a lawyer to take up their cases UNHCR staff told them: In Nauru you do not have thatfacility. If you were in Australian camp then you could demand for it. (C8)The Afghans also report subtle threats from the guards about injections for thoseunwilling to go back, the appalling physical conditions and the heat endured for extendedperiods without sufficient clean water and without electricity or air conditioning. One lad,C9 who had already escaped a Taliban assassination attempt sums up in halting Englishhis experience of Nauru: It will be better that Taliban killed me that time because theykilled just one time but in Australia…they killed every day and every minute. (C9)There is already ample research in Australia by Dr Zachary Steel and others at theCentre for Population and Health at the University of NSW 52 on the dangers of prolongeddetention. There is also a report compiled by a doctor who was a former detainee and aClinical Psychologist who worked at Villawood IDC, to indicate the psychiatric harm oflong-term detention.52 ‘Psychiatric Harm and Long Term Detention – Summary of Evidence’, Ms prepared by Zachary Steel; Seealso ‘Temporary Protection Visas compromise Refugees’ Health: New Research’, Media Release January2004, to be released later this year. See also ’Psychological disturbances in asylum seekers in long termdetention: a participant observer account’, Medical Journal of Australia (MIA), vol.1753 no 17 Dec 2001byAamer Sultan and Kevin O’Sullivan.26

I was immediately sent to prison on arrival. This was because they believed that Iwas applying for refugee status in Australia and that therefore we did not speak nice to theGovernment in Angola…My family did not know I was in Angola. I was locked up andpersecuted in Angola in a prison far from Luanda, far from my family. The charge was thatI had left the country and applied for refugee. I was a member of the Youth Movement thatwas against the Government. As a Bakango there is always discrimination by the majorityagainst us. I had no legal status. I was in jail. I was 3 months in prison. No one knew I wasthere. The conditions were terrible. No food. I was beaten up many times in jail. Theytreated us like animals. There was no legal representation. No money, except for somemoney given to me by SB. (P14).Deported by DIMIA without his own valid passport, MM3 was given no warning ofhis impending removal to the Congo; he was in danger there because of his known criticismof the excesses of both sides in the ongoing conflict there. He recalled:They came to me like military. I was crying. From the detention centre to theairport, I was handcuffed. In Johannesburg I was put in a basement room; it was a verybad place. They told me I was to be sent back to DRC. I saw no one, just security for fourdays. The place was very dirty. I saw no official from Immigration, not one. They put me ona plane to the Congo. They give me a paper and say you must go. They catch me at CongoAirport. Officials say ‘we know you.’ They took everything from me. They took my $50,everything. They let me go but they talk bad to me, they threaten me. (MM3)Another African tells of his dangerous experience. On arrival in Nigeria, C5 wasimmediately taken aside for interrogation because of his membership in the Biafraindependence movement and connection with Christians opposed to the imposition ofSharia law, the reasons for his asylum claim in the first place:I was handed over to the Nigerian Security Services (SSS). I was told by the officialsthat my name is in their computer system. (I wished the Australian officials were there towitness this interrogation.) I was called aside by one of the officers which to mydiscernment is sympathetic to our cause (Biafran Liberation).He gave me two options. First is that I should forfeit or abandon my belongings of 5suitcases and $1600 US they found with me and run away with their handcuffs on - on ourway to their headquarters- and that he will pretend that they had a flat tyre. Second is thathe will take me to their headquarters for severe interrogation in detention and definiteimprisonment without trial. I chose the former and absconded on our way to theirheadquarters. (C5)C5 escaped further dangers by making contact with friends, who warned him that hewas on the ‘most wanted’ list, and helped him out of Nigeria: I was provided a contact andsome money to leave my beloved country once again. Eventually he escaped to a FirstWorld country to begin a new appeal for asylum. (C5)SyriaDeportations to Damascus were equally problematic. Three deportees, T7, T8 andT1, were imprisoned on arrival, the first for one week, the second and third for one month.Another was in great danger because of his ticket which had the final destination as KuwaitCity. However, as a Bedoon, he would not be granted entry to Kuwait.28

The ticket, which the researchers have, was purchased by a DIMIA official atBelconnen in Canberra. T6 said he was very nervous on the journey, concerned about whatthe Damascus Customs officials would say to him. He believes the Kuwait City destinationwas on the ticket to make the Syrian Customs officials believe he was just visitingDamascus for a short period as a tourist and that he would be leaving for Kuwait City.Plate 1.The ticket to Kuwait purchased by DIMIA in Belconnen, Canberra.The story of P5 is even more dramatic. In late 2000 in a United Arab Emirates(UAE) airport on the deportation journey to Syria, this Iraqi deportee was arrested travellingon a false passport (obtained, he alleged, on ACM advice). His passport was recognized as aforgery.In custody he was made to strip naked and was interrogated. He was threatened withbeing sent to the Iraqi Embassy in the UAE. P5 threatened to jump out the window, statingthat as a member of the anti-Saddam groups he would be hung if he were to go back to Iraq.This saved him and he was deported back to Australia only to have the Australianauthorities again risk his security by deporting him three months later on the same falsepassport and again via the UAE where he was held on the plane during transit. Theresearchers had the passport with the double set of stamps as supportive evidence of thisaccount until it was ‘seized’ by the Federal Police earlier this year.Plate 2.Australian Certificate of Identity valid onlyfor one-way travel from Australia.29

IraqC12 details problems at the Jordanian/Iraq border where they were delayed until lateafternoon. This led to a dangerous high-speed journey across the desert. Their troublesincreased when the taxi-driver stopped short of their destination to demand more money.Denied this he refused to go on, left them in the dark and turned back. Having found anothertaxi they were eventually deposited in front of a hospital near a family home of one of themat 12.30 am. Extremely stressed by the journey, they were more distressed that IOM haddeserted them.In panic and fearing for his life, C12 rang his family. To come and collect him theyhad to risk their own lives and ignore the curfew. On the return drive across Baghdad, theywere stopped by Iraqi police vehicles because they were breaking the strict curfew. C12’sAustralian travel documents were written in English which the police could not read. Theysearched the car and C12’s luggage then threatened to arrest and imprison him. He wasforced to pay bribes to secure his release.IranD2 was handed over to Iranian officials on arrival in Iran and detained for 3 days atthe airport in a room the size of a bathroom and then released on bail – the title to hisparents’ house. (The Iranian officials kept this document for 6-7 months while they wereinvestigating his case.) At the airport he was interviewed with repeated questioning: ‘Whydid you go and when did you go? What was the reason? What was your problem with thegovernment?’ And things like that.When we were being questioned we were told not to say anything, just to write, towrite them answers, to put it in writing. And when I finished writing they told me that this isall rubbish and then ‘you went there to be a refugee’. And every month, every time I wastaken, there was all the writing from the previous months. And it was like a case officer thatcompleted ‘You said this, you said that’…And then if I had told a lie and could not findunderneath a statement, I would be imprisoned for lying because that would be in thedocuments.When D2 eventually applied for a passport in Iran, he was told that his travel paper,issued by the Iranian embassy in Australia, had a number on it that identified that he hadbeen in detention in Australia. The official at the passport office said this number meant thathe was ‘supposed to be treated badly’.D3 has a similar story. Deported and not allowed to pack his own bags, he askedpermission to throw away some documents that were in his possession. He feared that hewould get into trouble in Tehran if these documents were found on him. The DIMIAofficial refused to allow him access to his bags. He then asked the airline security for accessand they promised that they would help when they stopped at Dubai. On arrival therehowever, security changed shifts and the new guards refused him access.Like D2, he was detained at the airport: For three days I was questioned, and justall the time I was being questioned and then after 3 days I was allowed to make a phonecall home to ask them to bring the documents for bail. The questioning this time, he sayswas more specific and more detailed. They were focussing on religious issues, onChristianity and why did you convert to Christianity and obviously I haven’t accepted thatidea otherwise it would be dangerous. They were asking who else was in the camp and30

what did they say, what were their cases about? More specific questions,religiousquestions. D3 evaded the questions as best he could but says he is waiting for some sort ofsummons for court or for another type of interview. He does not know what will happen.AfghanistanC11, being Afghan, expected to be deported to Kabul. Instead, he was sent toLahore and left to find his own way home: I was very worried about what would happen atLahore Airport as I only had one way travel papers and no passport. I was afraid I wouldbe put in prison. An immigration person stopped me and I was taken into a room for nearlytwo hours and questioned.I didn’t tell them I was from Afghanistan. I didn’t know anyone in Lahore to ask forhelp. It was late when I was allowed to leave the airport and I was very scared. There wereno planes to X and I was told I would need to find a bus. It was a day’s journey to X. Thebus was very crowded. I was very frightened, exhausted and confused. From X I hadanother day’s travel by bus.BDangers After ArrivalAustralian authorities seem to have taken a sanguine view of the prospects of Iraqi,Palestinian and Bedoon deportees in Syria; of Sri Lankan asylum seekers in Colombo; ofAfrican asylum seekers anywhere on the African Continent; of Afghan deportees in Kabuland Iraqis in Baghdad.In the case of Syria, Australian officials seem to have been oblivious of the risk toIraqis of refoulement by Syrian authorities or of abduction by agents of Saddam Husseinbefore the fall of his regime. Nor do they seem to have understood the dangers anddiscrimination faced by people left with short-term visas in Syria, in particular Palestiniansor Bedoons from Kuwait. In removals to Afghanistan, little account seems to have beentaken of continuing Taliban presence, the power of the war-lords and the revival of theopium trade. Some accounts from our interviews illustrate these perils.SyriaP5’s case for asylum was based on his public opposition to Saddam in the period1969 – 1974 and the documented hanging of his associates. He told the interviewer: TheAustralian Government said that it was true that Iraq is too dangerous for you but your wifehas made it out of Iraq to Syria and you too have lived in Syria. So they said, you can go toSyria. After the 1998 border was opened between Iraq and Syria, Syria was no longer safefor people like me who were enemies of Saddam.The situation has changed radically since the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime butuntil that point Iraqi people we interviewed had lived in fear of being refouled by Syria orassassinated by Saddam’s agents who could easily cross the border. Some like P1 and P2say they still cannot rid themselves of this fear.Once their short-term visas expire in 1-6 months, life for the Bedoons in Syria ischaracterized by continual fear, insecurity, loss of basic civil rights, discrimination andpoverty. The depression is palpable in P4’s typical account. Along with all Bedoons in theKuwait army, he was ejected and discriminated against, on suspicion of being under Iraqiinfluence after the Gulf War. In the light of recent developments in fundamentalist groups31

opposed to the West, his comments about his children’s education are particularlysignificant.He said: I am very tired. I have no future. I am dizzy from the situation. I cannot goto Kuwait. Also the money my wife’s family sends, $200.00, is not enough to live on. I amdizzy. I do not know what to do. What can I do? Where shall I go? Where shall I stay? Idon’t know what to do. In tourists season, I dress like a Kuwaiti man but the rest of theyear is a real problem when you can easily be asked about ID.Persecution is a big problem – we are in danger because our accent is different.Some people are informing the police because we have no passport. That is the reason forpersecution. Children cannot go to school because they need a passport to go to school. Itake them to the Mosque each day, where there is a school for studying Islam. They canlisten but if someone wants to study then they must have ID. We have no ID so my childrenhave to do unofficial study. (P4)Plate 3.This visa issued to a rejected asylum seekerwas valid for a three month stay in Syria. Hewas told he could stay in Syria indefinitely byAustralian Officials. Fifteen minutes beforelanding in Syria he realised he would be therelegally for only three monthsOther Bedoon deportees presented a similar picture. P2 said: I live like a streetperson. I have no country. No identity. No money. I carry nothing in my hands. I have anunknown destiny. T2 says he very concerned about safety issues and has changedaccommodation seven or eight times as he is concerned that Security may be looking forhim: No-one has picked me up yet, but I have to avoid trouble all the time; I need to turn theother cheek if I am in a fight as I do not want to be seen by policeT5 did not report to Syrian authorities 15 days after arrival as required, as he washighly anxious about what would happen to him. He believed he would be imprisoned. Hekept a very low profile, often not leaving his house for days. Security police had stoppedhim twice and requested papers. He was forced to give a bribe of 500 Syrian pounds to thepolice to ‘ensure’ his safety. In mid 2004 he was imprisoned but a First World governmentnegotiated his release and provided him with refugee status and safe passage.Plate 4.This stamp on a Syrian Visa for a rejectedasylum seeker reads:"TO CONTACT THE PUBLIC SECURITYDEPARTMENT WITHIN 15 DAYS OFARRIVAL”32

Sri LankaThe dangers are no less for the Sri Lankans recorded below. Some like P6 and P13suffer from the lack of proper papers, in some cases because DIMIA had lost their ID cards.Others like P7 suffer because of ethnic tensions. P6 described his situation thus:I was not safe because DIMIA had lost my documents including my ID card. Theloss of my ID card caused me deep psychological fear. There were many forces all aroundthe city, there were military checkpoints. Minorities were focused on. It was frightening.Because DIMIA had lost my documents I could not prove who I was. They had lost my IDcard. DIMIA wrote to me after I was deported and apologised for misplacing my ID card.Without it I was a non-entity in Sri Lanka. I could not open a bank account. In Australia Iwas declared an unlawful non-citizen.When Australia sent me back to Sri Lanka without my ID card, I was treated as anon-entity, an unlawful non-citizen. I could not proceed with normal activities – workespecially. This caused great hardships to my mother and me…police and army werechecking IDs…I could not prove my identity and had to stay in my room for nearly 2months. I worry. In 2001 Sri Lanka airport was attacked. At a local level the conflictcontinues. People were killed just last week in Batticaloa. When the army and police knowyou are from Jaffna you are harassed. The fear is that if the LTTE ceases to exist we will beploughed by the majority. (P6)An elderly Sri Lankan woman, P7, explains her difficulties arising from ethnicity.She is a Burgher woman married to a Tamil man and this is unacceptable to theirneighbours. The situation is not good. The same movement that brought the troubles is stillthere. The JVP are still a problem in Batticaloa. I am too scared to leave the house. Whenmy husband was in hospital last month sometimes I could not visit him, I am toofrightened…I have been threatened and abused. They stand outside the house sometimes atnight and yell threats at us. I am a recluse. I can’t go out on my own. If it does erupt theknife can go in anywhere. (P7)P9 and P8 are both fearful for their safety. The former says the situation isdangerous and that he must use a different name in Sri Lanka. P8 spells out the situationmore clearly: I am not safe and need to go to a foreign country. We cannot be safe here. Iwent to Jaffna 3 months ago. 4-5 SL Police came to my family’s home in Jaffna and askedmy parents – where is your son? We want to arrest your son. So I cannot stay... But thearmy is all over the country. I am too scared to work. I cannot stay long-term in Colombo.The police might come to my home in Colombo.AfghanistanFor one young Afghan at least, C8, there was danger on ‘removal’ to Kabul, wherethe ‘safe house’ promised by IOM, was not available and he and others had to rent a roomin Kabul and go into immediate hiding.C11 had other fears about his safety in the long term: DIMIA continued to say that itwas safe to go back to Afghanistan as they wanted to get rid of us all. I knew that it was notsafe. I live in a remote mountain area in Afghanistan. The Karzai government have nocontrol in my area. The Taliban are still active there. The US are still bombing and chasingTaliban and Al Qaeda in my province. For nearly 2 years I refused to go back and I did not33

accept any money offer. But finally I knew I would lose my mind if I remained any longer inthat hell-hole. I gave up all hope and to save my sanity I signed to go back to a war zone.I and my family are in danger of persecution for reasons of race and religion andmy time in Australia. I am Shia Muslim and Shia are in the minority in my province inAfghanistan where we are persecuted by the Taliban and Sunni Muslim. The Taliban are incontrol in my province and the situation is even worse than when I fled in 2001. If we wereto return to Afghanistan I and my family would also be in danger because I have soughtasylum in Australia.. They will think I have been influenced by a western country and that Ihave turned my back on my own country and religion. I will be killed for this. (C11)A young Afghan, C9 is living in a country near his homeland and in danger becausehe is without proper papers there; he says he cannot live in Afghanistan because members ofhis family had already been killed by the Taliban:I can’t go to bazaar and other places now. I want to go to X but I don't have anypaper to move there because if they asked papers from me, then what should I show them?They will send me back to Afghanistan and I don't want to go back to that country. Here thebig problem is Taliban and they think that if they kill 3 Shias they will go to paradise; that iswhy they attacked Shia's mosque. As you know they attacked on a mosque and other placesand I was here when they attacked on Shia and killed 50 innocent people. Where I amliving… there are a lot of Wahibs living with us and they don't want us to live here. (C9)IraqC12 says his situation is very dangerous because he has no proper papers, speaksEnglish and has been in Australia for four years: I have no ID papers and the documentsupplied to me by Australia for travel has expired…I am in constant danger... To go out ofthe house is dangerous for me. I am unable to tell anyone where I have been for the last 4years or that I can speak English. I would be suspected of being a spy for the Americans ifthis was disclosed leaving my family and myself in danger.I have tried to work, and have been shot at, then told that if I return to work I wouldbe killed because they thought we were working for the Americans. The Americans shot atthe transit bus I travelled in, seriously wounding my cousin and killing several people.Thieves have held me up with a knife at my throat. I am in constant danger the moment Istep outside our house. (C12)C. Threatened with Deportation to DangerC2 is a young African whose asylum case rested on his involvement in the politicalparty opposed to the government and the dangers he experienced through his witnessing andlater seeking redress for the political assassination of his father and cousin. He was refusedasylum in Australia and told that within a fortnight he was to be deported to his homeland.Such a deportation he believed would bring certain death in the light of his previousexperience: harassment, near death ‘accidents’ and finally of torture in prison, graphicallydescribed in his affidavit:I was kept... for about five days. I had all sorts of things done to me I had electricalcables attached to my feet (toes) and they switched on the power from a low current up to apoint when the current was too much for me and I would pass out. On one particular occasionI was kicked in the face while 1 was lying down. This broke my nose, jaw and broke off two34

front teeth. I thought l would never get out of there alive. I could not eat any solids and justdrank water. During those days they kept on driving the point across to me that I should havelistened to advice and kept my mouth shut and should not have pursued my father's murder andkept out of X affairs. They told me I was going to 'join' my father. This torture continued fordays but I was later released. The pressure from our family lawyer, my wife and mother,facilitated this. We filed a report to the police but nothing came out of it.C2's deportation to this situation was narrowly avoided with the help of Australianfriends who bought tickets for him and his family so that he could go to another First Worldcountry where there is some possibility of having his claims for asylum seeker status granted.Summary of Evidence on Safety of Rejected Asylum SeekersTable I below summarizes our current evidence about the safety of the 40 rejectedasylum seekers in our study. We have used the Macquarie dictionary’s definition of dangeras ‘liability or exposure to harm; risk; peril’ and assumed that danger can be bothpsychological and physical. Our codes are: S = Safe, S? = Uncertain about safety and NS= Not Safe for those in physical or psychological danger.After careful examination of available evidence about the conditions in Nauru, theisolation and lack of recourse to lawyers, we have coded the Immigration Detention Centreas dangerous to the psychological health of detainees and therefore coded it NS. We havecoded Immigration Detention Centres in Australia as at least potentially dangerous forlong-term detainees and used the code S? (See Table II in Appendix I)Table IDEPORTEE SAFETY ON ARRIVAL AND AFTERWARDS BY NATIONALITY: NARRIVALAFTERWARDSNationality Safe Unsafe Safe Uncertain UnsafeAfghans 0 4 0 1 3Africans 1 6 1 3 3Bedoons 0 6 1 0 5Iranians 0 2 0 0 2Iraqis 2 5 1 4 2Palestinians 1 5 1 1 4Sri Lankans 1 7 1 2 5TOTAL 5 35 5 11 24CODES S = Safe NS = Not safe S? = Uncertain.Code S is used when respondent indicates safety, has proper papers, is free and able to work.Code NS is used when respondent indicates danger, eg: has no proper identity papers: is in prison; is unable towork; has to live in hiding; fears persecution; is in a war zone; is subject to threats from police.Code S? is used when respondent is: in an Australian Immigration Detention Centre; applying for refugeestatus in a First World Country where there is possibility of refusal and therefore of deportation; worriedabout safety because of past political activity; having to bribe police to maintain safety on a tourist visa.35

Table I indicates that on arrival 5 deported asylum seekers were safe and 35 wereunsafe and that after arrival 5 were clearly safe, 11 uncertain about their safety and 24definitely unsafe. The details for individuals are found in Table II in Appendix 1. A fewsignificant factors need to be noted.Of the 5 deportees safe on arrival• none were clearly safe afterwards; all 5 are coded Uncertain: S?• 2 had actually been threatened with deportation to danger but were saved bythe intervention of others.Of the 5 deportees safe after arrival• none were safe on arrival.• 2 were granted refugee status in First World Countries after rejection byAustralia and after years in detention here and in their own countries.• 3 were able to take up their normal work despite difficulties.Of the 35 deportees unsafe on arrival and the 24 unsafe after arrival, the reasonsgiven include:• lack of proper identification papers.• statelessness.• being forced to live in hiding/ danger because of ethnic violence orpersecution.• living in a war zone.The researchers have concluded that Australian authorities appear, at the very least,to have acted without sufficient attention to the risks for asylum seekers in the deportationprocess. The defence that many of these were so-called ‘voluntary’ returnees isunacceptable. Some agreed to be returned as a possible lesser of two evils, weighing thedangers of removal against indefinite, life-wasting detention in Australia, isolated fromfamily contact. The UNHCR has three times held that Australia’s policy of mandatorydetention of asylum seekers is in breach of international human rights law. 53It is hard to understand why the perceived imperative to remove asylum seekersfrom Australia has been allowed to outweigh the danger of secondary refoulement tocountries where they had been oppressed or to other countries that would be unsafe forthem. In a number of cases the Australian authorities recognized the reality of thisoppression. In other cases, such as that of the Bedoons, people were deported with shortterm papers.This was done with the apparent knowledge of Australian authorities that suchpeople would face a semi-underground life, excluded from normal employment, in terror ofdiscovery and facing active discrimination against themselves and their children inperpetuity, living outside the law in another state.53 Australian Human Rights News, 18/09/0336

2. Has the Australian Government or its agencies actually increased the dangersfor rejected people by sending reports about them to overseas authorities?We posed this question because in a significant number of interviews we heardreports indicating that DIMIA or ACM officials had actually sent on material thatendangered the lives of deportees. These responses come from three major areas ofdeportation: Sri Lanka, Syria and the African continent.Sri LankaThreatened with imprisonment on his arrival in Sri Lanka, P6 escaped because afriend met him at the airport and paid some money to bribe an official: Before that, I wasvery scared because the C.I.D were provided with documents by either ACM or DIMIA. TheCID had an A4 document with my picture in the top corner. Also, ACM and DIMIA had lostmy Sri Lankan identity card.Other similar cases in Sri Lanka are those of P10 and P13. The former was actuallyimprisoned and charged with suspicion of being a terrorist. He said: A fax had been sentfrom Australian Immigration saying I had links with a terrorist group. The judge said theCID had 14 days to bring evidence to prove the charges. I was sent to jail. After 14 days Iwent to court and was found not guilty and was released. (P10)The experience of P13 was similar and he too was released. He speaks of the tauntsof the guard: X (ACM staff) used to say to me that ‘when you go back to Colombo I willmake sure that you are regarded as a terrorist and that will put you into trouble’. And shedid that. She faxed information (they told my lawyer) about me to the Criminal InvestigationDepartment, part of the Department of Defence in Sri Lanka that interrogates and seeks tofind the truth. This made me very afraid about what would happen to me. (P13)SyriaIn Syria, when T1 showed his passport at the airport, he discovered that his namewas on a computer list. He was taken directly to the Political Security Prison in Damascus.He believes Syrian Customs was supplied with information from ACM regarding hisactivities in the detention centres where he was the Country representative on the detainees’committee, responsible for liaising between the detainees and the ACM. He also alleges thatSyrian Customs had information about him speaking to Australian journalists when in thedetention centre.African ContinentOn the African Continent, P14 had a similar experience. When he arrived in Angolahe discovered: The Australian Immigration provided information about me, stated all aboutme. This information meant that I was sent to prison. Ironically, when he escaped to a FirstWorld country his claim for asylum was accepted within six months.3. In managing removals, has the Australian Government or its agenciesencouraged asylum seekers to obtain false papers, or become associated withbribery and corruption?This question arose as a pattern emerged in our interviews suggesting that agents ofthe Australian Government might themselves be involved in practices used by ‘people37

smugglers’. Of the ten recorded interviews with deportees from Australia in Syria, six toldus that they were encouraged to get false passports. Some declined to do this.We note that DIMIA spokespersons have publicly said that: There were safeguardsto ensure that deportees did not travel on false passports. If there was any doubt abouttravel documents people have obtained themselves, the department referred them to the‘relevant authorities’ for comment on their authenticity. 54This denial has to be set against the fact that six people interviewed separately inSyria told us the same story and gave names of officials who had encouraged them to buypassports from ‘people smugglers’. One such official allegedly told the deportee that if hedisclosed this as a complaint, he would be in detention for 10 years. In addition, oneinterviewee, P5, gave us his now useless false passport stamped with two deportationjourneys out of Australia.As described above, the second journey was needed precisely because the falsity ofthe passport was discovered in the UAE and P5 was returned to Australia. It is not possibleto believe that these facts were not known by the Australian officials who organised thesecond journey on the same passport. P5 alleges that special arrangements were made totake him through several stopover check-points with the help of Australian Consularofficials.Collaboration between P&I and DIMIA is well illustrated by the story of theAngolan P14. Asked by DIMIA to verify his nationality, P&I secured travel documentswhich claimed that P14 was a citizen of the DRC. On this basis, DIMIA decided to sendhim to DRC rather than Angola though he does not speak French or have family there. Onthe way, in Johannesburg, however, P14 demanded contact with the Angolan Embassy,whose officials verified his Angolan nationality. Returned there, he eventually managed toflee again to a different First World country where asylum was granted.Material evidence of the apparent duplicity of some Australian officials emerges inanother story. T2 said: I agreed to leave as I had a conversation with Mr X; he works withthe Ministry of Immigration as a Manager of Departure. He said: ‘If you can get a falsepassport from a smuggler, I will take you to any country’. He was given a ticket purchasedby DIMIA for travel from Sydney to Kuwait, with a seven day ‘stopover’ in Damascus. Noentry documents were available for Kuwait and T2 alleges he was told to enter Syria on theshort visitor’s visa and then continue to live there illegally.He was told, if questioned at Damascus airport, to show the Syrian officials theticket as evidence of the fact he was only staying for seven days. The ticket and plan wereonly revealed to the deportee on the day of departure from Australia. The researchers haveaccepted this story as true. The ticket coupon provides evidence. The top right hand cornerbears a stamp indicating that it was bought by DIMIA at Belconnen in Canberra. Theperson is now trapped without documents in Syria, and other interviews also record thattravel documents were provided only at the point of departure.When leaving Australia, T9 was given a Certificate of Identity. It said his nationalitywas Kuwaiti. This is incorrect as he is stateless and has no Kuwaiti citizenship, which theFederal Court acknowledged. His Certificate gave him 3 months legal status in Damascus.54 Sydney Morning Herald, September 30, 2003 p.2.38

However, by the time he arrived in Damascus only 6 weeks of this time remained. Sincethen he has been living illegally: The DIMIA protection manager said that if I got a falsepassport, he would take me to any country. I refused. It would get me into more trouble. T9Plate 5.Former detainee Michael Abdul Matar with the false passport hesays was given him by Immigration Officials to leave Australia.Two other cases demonstrate the fact that travel documents supplied by Australiawere useful only for the journey or part of it, providing no security to the bearers beyond theairport at their destination.MM1 was deported to Kenya via Johannesburg. He informed us: The officials leftme in transit. They gave me a temporary travel document. I did not see any South Africanofficial. This document was taken from me in Kenya. To get through South African customsI showed no documents. The guard showed his pass and we went straight through. I wasarrested when arriving in Kenya. At the airport I was in a single cell but Br Sean waswaiting for me with a lawyer friend. I told them friends were waiting for me. I gave them$50 and they said they would make me a real passport but they didn’t. They just let me out.I had no papers. I am in transit here. I can get arrested here. I feel unsafe.MM2: They [DIMIA] send me a letter. You must go, we will send you anyway oryou sign the paper. As he has never been to school, the interviewers were unsure whetherMM2 was able to read the letter. His voluntary repatriation seems to have taken place underduress.At both Singapore and Johannesburg I saw no papers; the escort handledeverything. In Nairobi the escort gave me a paper to show immigration then left me. I gaveit to the man at Kenya Immigration. They took me to the jail at the airport for two days. Oneman told me if you just bribe the guard they will let you go. In the morning they came in thecar to take me to the Immigration office. I gave the big boss 10,000 Kenyan dinar. He calledhis assistant. He carried my bags to the main gate and said go. No papers, nothing. (MM2)Another practice reported in some stories is the supplying of currency with traveldocuments to secure acceptance by immigration officers in different countries on thejourney, in the absence of proper papers. Specific amounts were mentioned, to be placedinside travel documents and handed to officials upon arrival. Again, the researchers tend toaccept this allegation because it was made by several of the people interviewed,independently of one another.39

Plate 6.An example of a Certificate of Identity for a stateless Kuwaiti.This was his only identity paper and useless after June 2002.P4 told the interviewer: The Australian government gave me $200.00US forpayments. Y ensured we had $100 for food etc. The rest of the money was for paying offImmigration officials. After handing over my Certificate of Identity with $20.00US, I wasallowed to enter Syria.T5 was promised he would be given $200.00 in Dubai. There appears to have beensome confusion about the timing of this. Consequently T5 rang X. from the Dubai airportand he was then given the $200.00. From Dubai T5 was escorted to Damascus by a Dubaipoliceman: I was very afraid when I arrived at the airport as I did not know what wouldhappen. I was ready to give a bribe (that was what the $200.00 was for). But they let me in.P11 has a different story. Normally the escort man would hand over documents toSri Lankan officials but I asked the officer to give me emergency travel documents. He didthis and it helped me. When I gave my documents to Sri Lankan Immigration they took meto an inquiry room. The ACM officer saw this. After 15 minutes of questions I gave $200 tothe [Sri Lankan] officials and was given a letter to produce to the police in Colombo.4. Is the manner of conducting asylum seeker removals consistent with Australia’slegal obligationsNon-refoulement obligationsThe 2000 Senate Committee 55 sets out Australia’s critical obligation to people inneed of protection. It corresponds to their right of non-refoulement. People who are foundto have refugee status derive this right from the 1951 Refugee Convention and 1967Protocol to which Australia is a signatory. It means refugees have the right not to bereturned to the country where they have a well founded fear of persecution on thegrounds of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular group or politicalopinion – the so called ‘Convention reasons’.55 op.cit. Chapter 240

People who fail to establish that they are refugees in Convention terms but aredeemed to be in need of protection also have claims for non-refoulement under the 1984Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment orPunishment (CAT) and the 1996 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights(ICCPR). 56 To establish a non-refoulement right under the CAT there must be substantialgrounds for believing that a person will be in danger of torture on return.The Convention states that all relevant considerations must be taken into accountincluding a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights. Thenon-refoulement right under the ICCPR is mainly derived from Article 7 which states thatno one shall be subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Thisis wider than the definition of torture under the CAT and does not have a nexus withConvention reasons or specific targeting. It applies particularly to people caught up insituations of generalized violence and war.Complementary ProtectionThe 1951 Convention’s definition of refugee does not include all the categories ofpeople in need of international protection. It does not, for instance, extend to the needs ofpeople who are stateless; whose country is in a state of civil war; whose human rightshave been violated for non-Convention reasons; who would face torture on return; whosecountry is one where the rule of law no longer applies.To meet the protection needs of such people several European countries haveintroduced a separate visa category called Complementary Protection, an option whichthe European Union is in the process of adopting. In 2002 the Executive Committee ofthe UN High Commissioner for Refugees included as an objective of its Agenda forProtection: Provision of complementary forms of protection to those who might not fallwithin the scope of the 1951 Convention but require international protection. 57Addressing the same issue in the Australian context, in January 2004 the RefugeeCouncil, the National Council of Churches and Amnesty International produced a newmodel for assessment of protection applications. 58 The model includes both RefugeeStatus and Complementary Protection in each stage of the assessment process. If refugeestatus were refused, an assessment would then be made of the person’s need forcomplementary protection. Adoption of the model would require an amendment to theMigration Act and a new Regulation. The advantages to asylum seekers are evidentenough. The model would also remedy some of the well documented deficiencies of thepresent system.StatelessnessSeveral of the people in this study are Bedoon. This Arabic word means ‘withoutnationality’, or ‘stateless’. Nomadic people were denied nationality and citizens’ rightsin some of the new ‘nation states’ created in the Middle East in the last century, Kuwaitamong them. The plight of such people, denied citizenship in the land of their birth, wasaddressed internationally by the Stateless Persons Convention in 1954 and the 196156 The obligation may also arise under other international law instruments such as the Convention on theRights of the Child (CROC)57 See UNHCR’s ‘Agenda for Protection’ at www.unhcr.ch58 RCOA, NCCA, AI, ‘Complementary Protection – The Way Ahead’, January 2004. MS copy.41

Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. Australia has obligations entailed by theratification of both Conventions, including granting of civil status and certain economicand social rights.The stateless people in this study were refused refugee status according to theterms of the Refugee Convention; but their deportation indicates that in assessing theirneed for protection the two conventions which address their stateless situation were notgiven relevance. As noted above, statelessness is a condition which would entitle aperson to Complementary Protection wherever this category is recognised.Domestic law issuesAustralia has never incorporated the non-refoulement provisions of the CAT orthe ICCPR into its domestic law. This means that people who seek to rely on Australia’ssigning of these international agreements depend on the Immigration Minister’s discretion.It also means that there is no illegality in, or legal appeal process for, apparent breaches ofthese conventions in Australian law. There is much disquiet about this in Australia.The 2000 Senate Committee recommended that: the Attorney General’sDepartment, in conjunction with DIMIA, examine the most appropriate means by whichAustralia’s laws could be amended so as to explicitly incorporate the ‘non-refoulement’obligation of the CAT and ICCPR into domestic law. (Recommendation 2.2). TheGovernment did not respond. Currently, the Senate is enquiring into the exercise of theMinister’s discretion.The Refugee Convention prohibits countries making reservations about Articles 1and 33 – the definition of a refugee and the non-refoulement provision. Australia hashowever, particularly in recent years, placed a number of reservations in the MigrationAct, which limit the application of our international obligations. Of these limitations thefollowing are most significant. 59In 2001, the definition of persecution was narrowed 60 so that the reasons forpersecution set out in the Convention will not apply unless the reason for persecution isessential and significant, it involves serious harm and systematic and discriminatoryconduct. High Court judgments have in the past preferred a wider definition noting that:Persecution for a Convention reason may take an infinite variety of forms from death ortorture to the deprivation of opportunities to compete on equal terms with other membersof the relevant society. 61Recent judgments have criticised Australia’s abandonment of a wider definition. 62Such narrowing of the definition can lead people with internationally justifiable refugeeclaims to depend on the CAT or ICCPR. Hence they are protected only by the exercise ofunchallengeable Ministerial discretion.59 Australian Lawyers for Human Rights, Refugee Law Kit. Chapter 3 provides a summary of these limitations60 Migration Legislation Amendment Act (m0.6) 2001 (Cth) section 5.61 McHugh in Applicant A & Anor v Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs [1997] 190 CLR 225 quotedin Australian Lawyers for Human Rights Refugee Law Kit 2003 p 1362 Loc.cit J Kirby in Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs v Khawar[2002] HCA 14 [108]42

DiscriminationThe Refugee Convention prohibits discrimination which would penalize asylumseekers for the manner of their arrival or deny them the same entitlements and servicesavailable to Australian permanent residents. Nevertheless, Australia’s present systemappears discriminatory on both counts.During the past decade new laws have come into force designed to limit our legalobligations to people seeking asylum. Excision of offshore islands from Australia’s‘migration zone’ has made it much more difficult for would-be asylum seekers to reach aplace where they can gain access to Australia’s migration laws. Boat arrivals are eitherprocessed in one of these excised zones or taken to another country. Either way they areprocessed by DIMIA officials but not according to domestic law.People who do arrive in Australia to claim asylum are subjected to mandatorydetention of indeterminate duration, a system which has earned severe criticism in manyquarters. Persons granted refugee status receive Temporary Protection Visas (TPV) whichdo not provide for family reunion or temporary departure, limit resettlement benefits andrequire that claims be re-assessed after three years.Both excision and the restrictions applying to the Temporary Protection Visas areseen to be contrary to Australia’s obligations under international law. New arrangementsannounced by the Minister in August 2004 blur the crucial distinction between refugeeand migrant and do not address the critical issue of permanent protection for peoplealready granted refugee status: the holders of TPVs. The Refugee Council of Australialodged an immediate critical response to the new measures. 63Whether or not the removals investigated in this research are consistent withAustralia’s legal obligations depends largely on the quality of the processes used todetermine whether people are at risk as defined by the covenants and conventions ofinternational law referred to above. In turn, the quality of that assessment depends on thenatural justice of the process, the quality of information available to the decision makersand the reservations with which the international obligations have been incorporated intoAustralia’s domestic law.The stories the interviewers have heard support the view that the system is oftenoperated to maintain a policy of exclusion rather than uphold the human rights of asylumseekers and the legal obligation to protect them. Enough has been said above to indicatethat a persuasive case can be made that Australia has institutionalized a perverse system todefine its international legal obligations. The failure to incorporate some key internationallaw obligations into domestic law, despite the Senate Committee’s recommendation in2000, is also evidence of this perversity.This study highlights the pain and danger inflicted on people who, on the face ofit, have claims to our protection. The following section of the report highlights the way inwhich our harsh and indeterminate detention system (criticised by the UNHCR, as alreadynoted) pushed people to accept unsafe ‘voluntary’ removal. Some went to situations inwhich they faced the threat of death (P5) (C12) or torture (T1). Others went to a life on63 Immigration Media Release v099/2004 , ‘New Measures for TPV holders’ and Refugee Concil of Australia,‘RCOA Resonse to Announced TPV Changes, August 2004.43

the run in terror of the Syrian security police (P1, P2, P4, T1, T2, T5) or without paperson the African continent (MM1, MM2, MM3), in Iraq or in countries borderingAfghanistan (C8, C10, C11). As a result most have a difficult time surviving and can seeno end to their problem.At this stage in the research we do not have access to the records of thedetermination process through which the protection rights of our interviewees weredetermined. Nor was this our main focus. Without such information it is not possible tomake findings about the quality of the process experienced by the people we interviewed.From the viewpoint of the asylum seekers, however, the process appears as alottery in which much information was excluded. For instance, there seems to have been aserious misunderstanding at the RRT of the kind of protection available in Syria and thestate of affairs in Sri Lanka, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan. Significant information suppliedby some asylum seekers was not taken into account. P7 and P8 provide details:Our case was rejected in the RRT. The official told us that ‘you hardly hear of anybombings these days in Sri Lanka. It is no longer unsafe’. The official did not believe us,and thought that there was nothing to be afraid of in Colombo. That is not true. (P7)They told me ‘now in Sri Lanka it is peaceful. Nothing is happening in Sri Lanka.You can live in Sri Lanka – we cannot give you a visa’. This is wrong. All peace talks arefollowed by violence, ’94 and ’98 – now I don’t know when it will start but it will start.Today killing is happening – in Batticaloa this week a journalist was killed for reporting akilling. I don’t know when the fight will start all over again. (P8)Responsibility, AccountabilityWho is responsible?As the Australian Government has hired private companies to manage detentioncentres and act as its agents in deportation cases, questions arise around the issues ofresponsibility and accountability. During the Senate Enquiry, the Refugee Council ofAustralia noted that the activities of private companies are beyond the scope of Freedom ofInformation claims and questions whether engaging private firms in the removal of rejectedasylum seekers constitutes sufficient risk management of this activity. 64 The IndustryCommission submitted that a contract should precisely allocate responsibilities, specifycriteria for measuring and monitoring the contractor’s performance and indicate avenues forredress if dissatisfaction arises. 65On the basis of the information it received from various sources, including DIMIA,the Senate Committee concluded that the responsibility of the various parties involved inremovals is insufficiently clear. It further concluded that in order to discover whether theGovernment is sufficiently in control of its agents, further investigation into contractualarrangements between the Commonwealth Government and private contractors covering theremoval process is required. The Committee’s conclusions led to a set of recommendations,two of which we record here.64 op. cit. Chapter 10, 10.365 loc. cit. 10.6, footnote 444

Recommendation 10.3 : That appropriate protocols be developed between carriers andcontract removal providers. These protocols and the implementation of them should besubject to audit by an external and independent body.Recommendation II.I : That the Government place the issue of monitoring on the agendafor discussion at the Inter-Government/Non-Government Organisations Forum with a viewto examining the implementation of a system of informal monitoring.Who is accountable?This research indicates that the Senate Committee’s conclusions are well founded. Inour interviews the questions of responsibility and accountability arose in relation totreatment while in the custody of P and I, ACM or IOM, dangers created by DIMIA’s lossor retention of a person’s identification papers, the provision of false or inadequate papers,and allegations of chemical restraint to facilitate removal. These matters have beenmentioned above. It is certainly relevant to ask on what grounds can the AustralianGovernment justify handing over to a private company its responsibility for the safety andsecurity of a person who has sought our protection. Are we engaged in what amounts to‘privatised refoulement’ with neither care nor responsibility taken ? 66The Joint Ministerial Statement, signed by Australia and South Africa in 2002 andalready noted, also deserves attention. While the language of the document may seemunexceptionable, what it permits has incurred judicial intervention in both countries tosafeguard human rights. In Australia, June 1998, P and I were engaged to remove aSomalian asylum seeker. The RRT had declared him not to be Somalian but DIMIAobtained Somali travel documents for him even so. An injunction was sought and granted toprevent his removal by a third party, P and I. 67In South Africa in 2002, in the case of a man from the Congo being deported byAustralia through Johannesburg, the High Court granted an interdict that preventsAustralian and South African authorities from moving this man out of South Africa,directed that he be permitted to apply for asylum there and be given access to Lawyers forHuman Rights. 68 This is a judgement of great importance, as it recognizes the right of aperson in the transit area of an international airport to apply for asylum. If some of thepeople interviewed in this research had known that, they might have found the security thatstill eludes them.It seems clear to us that the Australian Government cannot evade responsibility andcorresponding accountability for what happens in the implementation of its refugeeprotection policy and system. Ultimately, governments are accountable for what their agentsdo. In this case the Government cannot deny responsibility by claiming ignorance of whathas been done in its name. NGOs like Amnesty International, lawyers, doctors,psychologists, academics, citizens’ advocacy groups, church agencies, human rights groups,parliamentarians, journalists have provided a continual stream of information, comment andcriticism which leaves no reasonable doubt that current policy and practice do not meetacceptable standards of humane justice. The Government does have a case to answer.Implementing the Senate Committee’s recommendations would be a first step towardsreform.66 cf. Eve Lester, ‘The Privatisation of Refugees in Orbit not exactly a P&O Cruise’, Uniya Focus No.31September 1998.67 op. cit.68 Interview with Jacob van Garderen, Lawyers for Human Rights, Pretoria, South Africa, 200445

5. Is the manner of conducting asylum seeker removals consistent with Australia’straditional values?Australians generally see themselves as supporting the values of mate-ship, a ‘fairgo’ and respect for the rule of law. Recently the Federal Government itself has come upwith a list of 10 values to be taught in Australian schools. These include tolerance andunderstanding, respect, social justice, care, honesty, freedom and being ethical.Each value is carefully spelled out. Thus tolerance and understanding meanaccepting other people’s differences and being aware of others; respect means treatingothers with consideration and regard; social justice means commitment to the pursuit andprotection of the common good where all persons are entitled to legal, social and economicfair treatment; care means caring for self and showing interest in, concern and care forothers; honesty means being truthful and sincere, showing consistency between words anddeeds; being ethical means acting in accordance with generally agreed rules and/orstandards for right [moral] conduct or practice.These are essentially interpersonal values. One would assume that a Governmentpromoting such values in the education of children would wish to see them demonstrated ata systemic level in its policies and practice. The stories of the deportees interviewed for thisresearch indicate that in their experience of detention and deportation, AustralianGovernment officials or their sub-contractors did not always uphold these values.Care, Tolerance and UnderstandingMisinformation about conditions in Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Iraq and aboutBedoon safety in Syria, the harshness of treatment in detention and leading up todeportation, the long delays in processing – all these things contravene the value ofgenuine concern and care for others. This is certainly how it was seen by the people weinterviewed.P4 sums it up: Australia did not care. The RRT told me that I could live in Syria.The RRT accepted that I was stateless from Kuwait but told me that the Syrian governmentwould accept all Arabic speaking people; but the Visa I was issued for Syria was only for3 months. The government of Australia did not care. The Certificate of Identity had aSyrian Visa that expired after 3 months on 8 April 2002. A member of the RRT told methat I could stay in Syria for 15 years and could get Syrian citizenship. The Federal courtaccepted that I was a Bedoon and said, ‘you have a case but you can live in Syria’.Australia did not care what happened after I got to Syria. (P4)Two Bedoons reflect unfavourably on Australia and their whole experience here.They clearly see it as lack of care, tolerance and understanding. One says he came toAustralia looking for freedom, safety and justice. Instead we found nothing but traps, builtof steel bars, bad laws, and dishonest politics… They destroyed me, three years and threemonths. What crime did I do? There is no reason they put me into jail and then give me$200.00 to go to Syria. My crime was to say I am a refugee when I got to Sydney off theplane. (P2)This complaint is echoed by P4: I went to Australia to seek asylum, not to betortured. If they had told me in one week whether I was accepted or not, it would havebeen better. I tried for 1 year and 8 months to leave Australia but I was informed by the46

Australian Government that there is not one single country in the world that will acceptyou. We were begging them to give us any document… I don’t know anything outside therazor wire. I have not seen anything good. I witnessed suicide attempts, attempts atcutting wrists, cutting chests, sewing lips and jumping onto razor wire. (P4)P2 described his own desperate situation: I had 2 choices: whether I wouldcommit suicide in the detention centre or whether I would leave Australia. As a group, wewere considering suicide. We wrote to the media, TV, government and Churches asking,‘Please save us’. When I remember Australia, my heart is torn to pieces.One of the Iraqi survivors removed from the Tampa by the Navy on board theManoora reveals the conditions under which she and her companions were taken to Nauruas part of the Government’s ‘Pacific Solution’, after being promised passage to Australia:We refused to land in Nauru and were kept on the boat for one month in a room largeenough for 100 and we were 350. We could not breathe; there was not enough room andthe toilet facilities were terrible, terrible. There was not enough food and the food had toomuch chilli in it so that no one could eat it. (C4)A well-educated Sri Lankan man, P13, reflects on examples of cruelty indetention before his deportation. Speaking of one of the guards he said: He was cruel. Thisman treated black people very badly, especially the Africans. They were treated terribly.A young Iraqi, C9, found Australia racist, anti Muslim, saying: I am sad I came; I lose 4years of my youth. I was treated like a criminal; I am damaged in my heart and soul.An Afghan man, C11, gave the reason why he decided to leave ‘voluntarily’ eventhough he expected to face danger: This detention centre is a hell-hole. There was a lot ofpersecution by ACM. I felt I had no hope of freedom ever and I felt I would never see mywife and children again. I was very depressed. I was afraid I would lose my mind if Istayed any longer. I felt it was better to lose my life trying to reach my family than to losemy life in that detention centre.In their estimation, as they recall their experience, these asylum seekers receivedfrom Australia neither care nor understanding, but various forms of psychological tortureand physical maltreatment leading some to self-mutilation, depression, despair andthoughts of suicide. Hearts, we were told, were ‘damaged’ and ‘torn to pieces’. How doesall this fit with the values on which we like to pride ourselves and hope the children ofthe nation will embrace?Social Justice, Respect for the Rule of LawIn some of the interviews we heard stories which echoed a criticism heard oftenfrom detainees in Australian detention centres and lawyers working as advocates:inconsistency in the outcomes of the process by which refugee status is recognised ordenied. The term ‘lottery’ has been used to suggest that chance rather than due processunder the law has decided the result in some cases. The following examples are apposite.T1 said that the DIMIA case officer felt he had a good case for asylum because ofhis prison record in Syria for political activities. To support his case, T1 had supplied areport from the Office of Human Rights in Syria regarding his jailing for political reasonsin Damascus. However, the case officer came to the view that he would be safe if he wentto Iran. Responding, T1 said: I did not know whether to laugh or cry; they want to tellyou anything – to put any reason to you. Regarding the RRT decision, he said: The RRT47

said UNHCR would protect us. The UNHCR cannot protect us. It cannot protect itselffrom the regime [Syrian Government]. He concluded: I can feel inside that they don’tcare and don’t believe that I would be persecuted again.P4 comments on the lack of social justice in the ‘lottery’ aspect of the reviewprocess. The Bedoons cannot understand why in Melbourne all Bedoons were acceptedand in Sydney all were rejected: What has made our imprisonment harder to bear is themanner in which our claims have been considered. For some asylum seekers, the processhas been fair, but that is more a matter of luck than justice.When two people with identical circumstances are interviewed by differentofficials, one will receive a visa, while the other will not. Ignorance about the culture andpolitics of our homelands, flawed translations, and even the temperament of officialshave all led to unfair decisions. Whatever evidence we present, whether it is our personaltestimony or a report from a respected authority, it can always be ignored or dismissedby an official whose mind is already made up. He quotes the lawyers’ advice: They saidto me, ‘we know you have a just case but it is finished. Stay here and live like a dog orgo from Australia’.A Sri Lankan man says something similar: I really can’t understand. AustralianImmigration never followed the rules. Sometimes they release some people, while others arenot released. I don’t think they follow cases closely. People came from different countriestreated differently. The RRT official asked what my religion was. I said Muslim, language isTamil. He said in Sri Lanka, Tamils are either Hindu or Catholic. The RRT official confusedthe basic question of religion. (P9)P13 recounts an extraordinary case which looks like gross carelessness or seriousdeception at the detention centre: In November, my mother… couriered to me (in thedetention centre) documents about my father’s death, his death certificate and myeducational certificates. These would help me prove my case.I did not receive these documents. When I inquired about them, I was told theymust have gone astray. I rang DHL in Sydney and they said the documents weredelivered to the detention centre. I then told DIMIA that I had spoken to DHL and that Ihad the reference number and that DHL said that the documents had in fact beendelivered to the detention centre. I was told that the documents had ‘gone astray’.With unconscious irony P3 laments the curious injustice and inconsistency ofAustralia’s policy. I find it very sad and tragic for Australia that the Government therenow is fighting the war against Saddam and yet this is the thing we were also prepared todo to get rid of Saddam Hussein and for this, I spent 2 years and 3 months in detention.C8 says that in Nauru the Afghan detainees were told many times by the UNHCRtranslators and by the IOM staff that they must go back to Afghanistan because it is nowthe policy of Australia to send the refugees back. However much your life may be indanger, you won’t be accepted.When he and others realised that what the translators were saying for them wastoo different and incomplete, their request for an alternative translator was refused. Whenthey asked for a lawyer to take up their cases UNHCR staff told them: In Nauru you donot have that facility. If you were in Australian camp then you could demand for it.48

Another man describes being deported while his case was with UNHCR. Onemorning I was about to enter the shower when I was asked to go to reception as there wasan Immigration officer who wanted to see me. I told the officer that my case was at theUNCHR pending a decision. DIMIA ignored this and said I would be deported that day. Icould not return to my bedroom. I was taken to the airport. Again I told the AirportImmigration officer my case was pending at the UNHCR. He took no notice. P10While the researchers recognise that these claims of abuse are made by peoplewho have suffered great disappointment in losing the right to live in Australia, there is nodiscounting the fact that people from very different backgrounds and life situations makeindependent and consistent claims about the quality of justice they experienced in ourprotection system. At the very least Australia has a case to answer.RespectSome of the processes of deportation deny the dignity of the human person.Threats of violence or injection increase the fear and anxiety of already vulnerable people;chemical injection undermines people’s capacity to be alert to dangers and to respond todemands when facing potentially critical interviews with immigration officials; inhumanetreatment in toilet arrangements and use of handcuffs on long journeys ignore commondecency standards; secrecy and lack of transparency in the actual deportation processscreen the Immigration Department from scrutiny by the Australian people who for themost part do not know what is going on.Explaining his reason for agreeing to go from Australia ‘voluntarily’, P2 said: Ihad witnessed what happens to resisters, Algerians, Turkish people. I saw people injected.One Turkish man was provided by DIMIA with a false passport and they deported himforcibly. I witnessed a lot of cases like this. (P2) An actual example of chemical injectionis graphically described by a former ACM Officer 69 when he was told about an‘extraction’.We have an 'extraction’, he's high risk, whatever that meant. I mean I didn't knowanything then. I just followed orders. We get this guy out of bed early in the morning. Wepull the sheet off him. He's in his pyjamas or those long pants that those people wear. Heclings on to the bedstead; this is a steel bedstead. My job is to unwind his fingers,struggling, shouting he won't go. There are nurses. First time I'd seen a 'chemicalrestraint' used. They must have broken about three needles on him. I'm thinking theremust be a better way. This bloke's not an animal.We put him in the fish bowl. That's like a cage. There were about six big blokes likeme. Another tries to get these injections into him. But it’s not working. He scratches andthere’s blood. He’s shouting he won’t go back. Also he's Muslim, this guy. Putting thischemical stuff into his blood - that’s unclean. That’s against his religion. Anyway we get thehandcuffs on him. We get him out of the cage and get him into the van to the airport. He'ssaying ‘I want my shoes.’ His T-shirt is torn. He's saying: ‘I can't go without my shoes.’When we get him into the aircraft we handcuff him to the seat. But he pulls thewhole seat out of the floor. That was it. We got him off the plane and took him back. Next69 . This story was told to Ngareta Rossell, a volunteer research assistant on this project, on October 18, 2002 bya former ACM Officer.49

week we did it again. This time he went quietly. ‘Just give me the tablet’, he said. ‘Don'tinject me with that’. I don't know what happened to him. 1 think he went to jail at the end.This account of chemical injection has been denied by DIMIA. Nevertheless at leastfive rejected asylum seekers mention seeing injections or being threatened themselves withinjection and the Government obviously knew that there had been complaints. The SenateEnquiry in 2000 received questions about injection and recommended: That an inquiry beundertaken into the use of sedation and other means of restraint in detention centres and inthe removal of unauthorised non-citizens from Australia. 70 Hansard (8.02.01) records thebland response of the Government: The use of restraints is under examination as part of ageneral security review being undertaken within DIMIA.A different complaint is made by P2 about the secrecy of the deportation process.He regarded as very strange the secrecy imposed by the ACM guards during deportation:They took us to the airport. Our friends were to come and say goodbye to us but ACM staffhad keys to airport doors and we were taken directly to the plane. We were restrained fromseeing anybody. C12 records the same sort of experience at a different airport where he wasdenied access to friends assembled at the airport though permission had previously beengiven.Other stories point to the gratuitous harshness of treatment in detention centresbefore and during deportation. They told us we are not real refugees. The guard treated melike a prisoner. They tell me if I bring trouble I get an injection. In Singapore I was lockedin a cell for seven hours. Immigration, police and soldiers, they took me and locked me up.In Johannesburg they locked me in a room for two hours. (MM2)I was really worried as there had been a bomb blast in Sri Lanka and I did not wantto go there. At 5.30 am DIMIA officials came, handcuffed me and took me. They threatenedto beat me if I did not come. I had seen before people being treated violently. I was scared.ACM told me that my card had been lost ‘somewhere’. I did not know what would happennext. I had an ulcer. No food was provided from morning until we got to Perth. Our trouserswere held from the back by an official whenever we went to the toilet. The toilet door waskept open. I was afraid to say too much because I am afraid of the ACM boss. (P6)The detention centre was very bad because the officers were very dangerous people.Mr Y. treated us very badly. If someone did a small wrong, you were put in a cell. One timeI was put in a cell for 4-5 days. I could not tell day from night. I could not go to thebathroom. Maybe for 5 minutes a day the door was opened so I could shower and toilet.One time I could not breathe. I knocked many times on the door. All officers and kitchenstaff are all too bad. The officers used to beat the detainees. We were put in an 8 by 8 cellwith one small six-inch window. (P9)These indictments from people who have had very painful experiences inAustralia raise some serious questions. Is this a mirror in which Australians need to lookat themselves? For the sake of protecting our borders, was it necessary so to besmirch ourimage as a freedom-loving and just nation? Could we not have protected our borders inmore humane and compassionate ways?In his Jessie Street Trust Lecture of 2001, Justice Marcus Einfeld reminded usthat though we are generally a kind and generous people, illusion is always a possibility. It70 op. cit., p.324, Recommendation 10.150

is just that we are not as good as we say or think we are. Referring to our treatment ofasylum seekers generally, he goes on to say: Indeed, while this situation persists, we areengaged in an empty, untruthful boast about our superior standards. 71CONCLUSIONThis research arose from anxiety and frustration. The anxiety was that of churchleaders and human rights groups worried by accounts of fear-filled lives, of death,disappearance, imprisonment and torture in the experience of asylum seekers removed fromAustralia in likely breach of our non-refoulement obligations in International Law. Thefrustration was with Government policy which denies any responsibility for the results ofremoval and refuses to reform documented problems in the system of protection assessmentwhich is the prelude to removal.We now know that the anxiety is well founded. Our interviewees come from 11different countries and an even greater variety of ethnic and religious backgrounds. It is aserious indictment of Australia that only five of the 40 people interviewed can be said to beclearly safe after removal in either the short term or long term.In answer to the core question, whether the Australian Government or its agenciessent or attempted to send asylum seekers to unsafe places we have found a picture whichwill shame most Australians who subscribe to the values of respect for the rule of law,‘mate-ship’ and ‘a fair-go’, let alone the values of care, tolerance, respect, understanding,and social justice recently proposed as essential in the education of our children.Our interviews suggest that in the push to move detainees out of Australia, theAustralian authorities often took a reckless view of the dangers and discrimination facedby people on immediate arrival or indefinitely in the countries to which they were sent.The perils they faced include living again in great fear of being killed by authorities or bycombatants in virtual war zones; fear of arrest, imprisonment or torture; fear ofpersecution on Refugee Convention grounds; fear of further secondary refoulement to ahome country which would persecute them.To our shame, coping with the dangers to which they were exposed was oftenmade more difficult by debilitation after nightmare journeys of removal or by the longterm effects of living in detention centres in Australia or Nauru: depression, anxiety statesand other psychiatric illnesses. The research also revealed disturbing allegations bydetainees that on occasions officials of the Australian Government, or their agents, haveprovided information to authorities overseas which increased their danger on arrival. Thedetainees’ allegations also suggest that such officials or their agents were not averse tobribery and corruption, including use of false documents and cash payments.The research presents convincing evidence that Australia’s refugee protectionsystem is in urgent need of reform. The protection of refugees and asylum seekers is not alegal issue only; it is a moral issue, because fundamental human rights and human lives areat stake. As a sovereign nation and a member of the United Nations, Australia is bothmorally and legally obliged to defend the human rights of its own citizens and of any personwho appeals for our protection.71 ‘Background Briefing’, The ABC, Sunday 3. 06. 200151

In order to secure the rights of people seeking asylum and refugee status ourdomestic law needs reform to incorporate the principles of various international laws andconventions. Assessment processes in DIMIA and the RRT need reform on the linesrecommended by the Senate Committee in 2000. Our internationally notorious detentionsystem and the misnamed ‘Pacific Solution’ require urgent alternative strategies whichrespect human dignity and take seriously our responsibilities in the community of nations.Those responsibilities fall not only on the government but on the nation’s citizens,for in a democracy it is to the people that the government is ultimately accountable. To takeour freedoms for granted is to put them at risk. The stories of our rejected asylum seekersremind us that to ignore or deny the rights of one person puts the rights of us all in jeopardy.52

AbbreviationsAIDSACMCATCOPASDFATDIMIADRCFWCHREOCICCPRIOMJRSJVPLTTEMDCNASSNGOP & IRCOARRTSLMMTPVUNHCRUNICEFAuto Immune Deficiency SyndromeAustralian Correctional ManagementConvention against TortureCoalition for the Protection of Asylum SeekersDepartment of Foreign Affairs and TradeDepartment of Immigration, Multicultural and Indigenous AffairsDemocratic Republic of the CongoFirst World CountryHuman Rights and Equal Opportunity CommissionInternational Covenant on Civil and Political RightsInternational Organisation for MigrationJesuit Refugee ServiceJanatha Vimukthi Peramuna (People's Liberation Front of Sri Lanka)Liberation Tigers of Tamil EelamMovement for Democratic ChangeNational Asylum Support ServiceNon Government OrganisationProfessional and Indemnity Pty LtdRefugee Council of AustraliaRefugee Review TribunalSri Lanka Monitoring MissionTemporary Protection VisaUnited Nations High Commissioner for RefugeesUnited Nations International Children’s Education Fund53

Appendices1 Table II: Safety on arrival/afterwards by nationality by deportee2 Interview Schedule54

Appendix 1Table IISAFETY ON ARRIVAL AND AFTERWARDS BY NATIONALITY BY DEPORTEES = Safe NS = Not safe S? = Uncertain FWC = First World Country________________________________________________________________________________SAFETY ON ARRIVALSAFETY AFTER ARRIVALAfghansC8 NS Deported first to Nauru NS in hiding StoryC9 NS Deported first to Nauru NS in hidingC10 NS Deported first to Nauru S ? FWC applying for refugee statusC11 NS Deported first to Nauru NS in hidingAfricansC1 S Threatened with deportation to danger S? FWC applying for refugee statusC5 NS Threatened with gaol in hiding S? FWC applying for refugee statusMM1 NS No proper papers NS No proper papers StoryMM2 NS No proper papers NS No proper papersMM3 NS No proper papers NS No proper papers StoryP14 NS In gaol S Granted asylum FWC StoryP15 NS No proper papers S? In Detention Centre StoryBedoonsP2 NS Stateless NS No proper papersP4 NS Stateless NS No proper papersT2 NS Stateless NS No proper papersT5 NS Stateless S Granted asylum FWC StoryT6 NS Stateless NS No proper papersT9 NS Stateless NS No proper papersIraniansD1 NS Detained at Airport NS Fears persecution on account of religionD2 NS Detained at Airport NS Fears persecution on account of religionCode S is used when respondent indicates safety, has proper identity papers, is free and able to work.Code NS is used when respondent indicates danger, eg: no proper identity papers, is in prison, unable towork, has to live in hiding, fears persecution, is in a war zone, subject to threats from police etc.Code S? used when respondent is in Immigration Detention Centre; applying for refugee status in FirstWorld Country; worried about safety because of past political activity; having to bribe police to maintainsafety on a Tourist visa.55

Table II (Continued)SAFETY STATUS ON ARRIVAL AND AFTERWARDS BYNATIONALITY BY DEPORTEES = Safe S? = Uncertain S = Not safe FWC = First World Country________________________________________________________________________________SAFETY ON ARRIVALSAFETY AFTER ARRIVAL________________________________________________________________________________IraqisC2 S Threatened with deportation to danger S? Detention CentreC3 NS In hiding – fear of persecution S? FWC applying for refugee statusC4 NS Deported first to Nauru S? FWC applying for refugee statusC12 NS No proper papers – war zone NS No papers - war zone StoryP1 NS No proper papers - in hiding NS No proper papersP3 S Met by father S? Takes care because of previous political partyP5 NS False passport S Safe after death of SaddamPalestiniansT1 NS Security prison one month -beaten NS No proper papersT3 NS 2 weeks in Political Security Prison S Has a jobT4 NS Great psychological stress NS Cannot work – injury in IDCT7 NS Security prison one week. S? Has job but 'being Palestinian inSyria is difficult'T8 NS Security prison one month NS No job- too distressed to answerD1 S In Asian country as tourist NS Forced to bribe police to cross borderto workSri LankansP6 NS DIMIA ‘lost’ his identity card S? Worried if peace talks fail –‘they will come after me’P7 NS Threatened with violence NS Fear of persecution StoryP8 NS 3 months in Security prison NS Fears harassment from police.P9 S Papers from Sri Lankan Embassy S? With family but ‘worried about future’P10 NS 14 days In Security prison NS Fearful because of his ethnicityP11 NS Detained –forced to bribe police S Working in own professionP12 NS Threatened with violence NS Ethnic tensionsP13 NS Detained at the airport prison NS No proper papers DIMIA lost his ID CardCode S is used when respondent indicates safety, has proper identity papers, is free and able to work.Code NS is used when respondent indicates danger, eg: no proper identity papers, is in prison, unable towork, has to live in hiding, fears persecution, is in a war zone, subject to threats from police etc.Code S? used when respondent is in Immigration Detention Centre; applying for refugee status in FirstWorld Country; worried about safety because of past political activity; having to bribe police to maintainsafety on a Tourist visa.56

EDMUND RICE CENTRE RESEARCH PROJECT 2003 - 2004What happens to Australia’s deportees90 Underwood Road, Homebush NSW Australia Tel: 61 2 9764 1330 Website: www.erc.org.auResearchers: Carmel Leavey OP & Mary Britt OP: sis4129@bigpond.net.au Tel: 61 2 9746 1292Margaret Hetherton m_hetherton@hotmail.com Tel :61 2 9818 4216:QUESTIONS FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE DEPORTED**(Please note that we here also include “repatriated “or “returned” people.)The Edmund Rice Centre is researching what happens to people deported from Australia. Tellingyour story here will help build a report about what really happens in deportation. Advocacy groupswill use the report to demand a more humane system in Australia. The Edmund Rice Centre is anindependent NGO set up to work for social justice by the Christian Brothers. If you would likemore information please e-mail the above address.It is of paramount concern that no harm comes to you because you have told us your storyhere. You can ask for special arrangements to keep your name and identifying details hidden andsecret when filling in the CONFIDENTIALITY and ANONYMITY section at the end. Theresearchers promise to honour your wishes._______________________________________________________________________________________INTERVIEW SCHEDULEPlease answer by ticking set answers or writing in answers which apply. Write on extra pages if necessarynoting the related question number.1. What is your name?If you do not want to write this down please write another name with a ** e.g. Hussein Naru**2. What year were you deported from Australia?3. Were you in a Detention Center just before being deported?No Yes [If yes which one?]4. How did you leave Australia? By ship? By plane? From which port?5. Did you agree to leave Australia voluntarily?No Yes [If yes, what reasons made you decide to leave Australia?]6. How much warning did you get about the date and time of departure from Australia?Days Hours7. At what levels were you able to put your case for refugee status?DIMIA (Department of Immigration …)RRT (Refugee Review Tribunal)Other (Please describe)57

8. Was there anything that prevented you explaining your case to another higher level ofappeal? Please explain.9. What was your understanding of Australia’s reasons for deporting you?10. Were you restrained on the journey?No Yes [If yes, how were you restrained and for what part of the journey?]11. Did you resist your deportation?No Yes [If yes, how did you resist?]12. Did an official person (e.g. DIMIA officer) escort you on the journey?No Yes [If yes, what kind of official? For what parts of the journey?]13. What was your final destination, i.e. the end of your deportation journey from Australia?14. In what places were you “in transit” or stop on the way and for how long?15. Did you have any problems about the way you were treated from the time you knew of yourplanned journey until you reached your final destination?No Yes [If yes, please describe each problem in detail.]16. What happened to you at your final destination? Please describe what happened in detail.17. After arriving at your final destination did you have problems in relation to:o Safetyo Legal issueso Financial issueso Other?18. In what country do you live now?19. What is your situation now? Please describe in relation to:o Safetyo Legal issueso Financial issueso Other?20. Please tell us about how you feel about where you live now?21. Do you fear you are in danger of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality,membership of a particular social group or political opinion? If yes, please explain this.58

These next questions are about personal details. We ask them only to better understand theproblems of different groups of deported people.If you think any of these questions are unsafe for you please mark with a R.(Restricted answer). Otherwise, please circle the right answer or write in the information.I. Are you a man or a woman? Man WomanII. What is the year of your birth 19--III. Are you single? Currently married? Separated / divorced?IV. Do you have children? How many under 18 years?V. What was your highest level of education?VI. What was your main occupation in the past?VII. What is your main occupation now?VIII. What languages do you speak?IX. What is your nationality?X. Do you belong to an ethnic minority? What one?XI. How long were you in Australia in total? Years MonthsXII. What kind(s) of Visa did you have?XIII. Were you held in a Deportation Centre at any time? If so which one ?XIV. For how long in total were you in detention in Australia? Years MonthsXV. What were the reasons you left your country in the first place?XVI. What did you know about Australia before you came here?XVII. What do you think about Australia now – as a result of your experiences?CONFIDENTIALITY AND ANONYMITY REQUESTPlease tell the researchers how much of your story they can include in a report. The researchersundertake to respect your wishes and keep all records in a safe placeCircle A B C- the letter which matches your wishesABCI agree that MY ENTIRE STORY can be told.I agree that my story can be told but MY NAME MUST NOT BE INCLUDED.I agree that my story can be told BUT MY NAME AND OTHER DETAILS WHICHMIGHT IDENTIFY ME MUST NOT BE INCLUDED.THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR HELP.WE BELIEVE IT CAN HELP OTHER PEOPLE IN SITUATIONS LIKE YOURS.59