The Australian government has come under fire, with Amnesty worldwide calling for a Royal Commission of Inquiry into claims officials paid people smugglers to return a boat of asylum seekers to Indonesia.
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“The evidence collected by Amnesty worldwide about the events of May 2015 indicates…”
“Australian officials forced the crew and people seeking asylum onto two different and smaller boats, and the crew were given instructions to go to Rote Island in Indonesia as well as a map showing landing sites”, the report says.
At least a few of the people on the boats had legitimate claims for asylum, but they were never assessed by Australian officials or offered protection.
Amnesty worldwide has slammed Australia’s secretive Operation Sovereign Borders as a “lawless venture” that should be fully exposed through a royal commission.
“To suggest otherwise, as Amnesty has done, is to cast a slur on the men and women of the Australian Border Force and Australian Defence Force”, Dutton’s spokesperson said in a statement to Xinhua.
The Amnesty worldwide claims that last May a boat with six crew and 60 passengers, apparently heading for New Zealand, was intercepted by Australian vessels.
The worldwide Organization for Migration now estimates almost 710,000 asylum seekers and migrants have arrived on European shores by boat so far this year, while a few 3,200 have died or gone missing trying to do so.
The Australian government has rejected the report and denied any wrongdoing.
Amnesty interviewed the 65 passengers who were on board the ship, as well as the six crew and Indonesian officials, and concluded, “all of the available evidence points to Australian officials having committed a transnational crime” and that officials effectively engaged in people smuggling.
Indonesian police confirmed they found the cash in crisp $100 bills on the crew when they arrested them, Amnesty said.
By May 30, all those who had set out had been transferred by Australian officials to two new boats.
It’s one of our most respected charities, however today Amnesty worldwide, who many Australians support, has turned on us, saying that our authorities have acted like people smugglers, put people’s lives at risk and treated people in an inhumane way. An Indonesian MP has called on Australia to drop the boat turn-back policy, and proposed a joint Australian-Indonesian investigation. Bizarrely, the pair then retracted their denials and replaced them with the government’s official line of “no comment”.
Mr Shearer says given one of the boats was heading for New Zealand, the Prime Minister should now rule out any knowledge of the incident.
“Our Australian officials operate in accordance with domestic Australian law and in accordance with our worldwide obligations”, she told reporters in Melbourne. All people seeking asylum deserve to have their claims fairly dealt with. “And instead of continuing with turnbacks Australia must engage in effective dialogue to improve regional protections for vulnerable populations in the Asia-Pacific region, and expand safe and legal routes for people to reach safety”, Shea mentioned.
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Don Rothwell, an Australian National University expert on worldwide law, said that if Australian officials had paid traffickers, they had broken the law. The 32,000 United States dollars constitutes a financial benefit to the crew to procure the illegal entry.
