Oliver Laughland theguardian.com, Tuesday 19 August 2014
Guardian Australia Exclusive:
• Emails reveal strategies used by immigration department to send back asylum seekers
• Syrian asylum seekers on Manus Island and Nauru being returned to face certain harm, say human rights experts
Asylum seekers housed in Delta compound on Manus Island detention centre. Photograph: Eoin Blackwell/AAP
The lengths to which the Australian immigration department has gone to facilitate the repatriation of traumatised Syrian asylum seekers detained in offshore detention centres has been extensively revealed in departmental emails obtained under freedom of information laws.
Human rights experts have criticised the actions, saying Australia was doing the “unthinkable” by endeavouring to return Syrians.
The emails support reports from Guardian Australia in March, showing that Syrians detained offshore told Australian immigration department officials they would be killed if they returned to Syria, but the department facilitated plans for their repatriation nonetheless. This included sharing asylum-seeker identity documents with the Syrian consulate in Australia, booking flights via Jordan, and endeavouring to issue an “ultimatum” to force them into a decision on repatriation, despite a number of them being severely mentally ill.
At no point in any of the disclosed emails is conflict in Syria, which has seen more than 100,000 people die and 2.56 million refugees flee the civil war, discussed. And at no point are concerns about the asylum seekers’ safety back in Syria articulated.
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM), tasked with facilitating asylum-seeker returns in offshore detention, does not facilitate repatriation to Syria because it is too dangerous.
The Australian immigration minister, Scott Morrison, has formally recognised the “humanitarian crisis” in Syria and marked 4,400 resettlement places within Australia’s annual allowance for Syrians and Iraqis fleeing persecution. Morrison has been accused of hypocrisy by politicians and human rights advocates following the email disclosures.
Syrians on Manus Island ‘were quite adamant that I would be sending them home to their death’
In one departmental email dated 20 January, Katrina Neuss, the immigration department’s operations lead on Manus Island, wrote about a recent meeting with Syrian asylum seekers:
“I was very open and frank with the transferees [asylum seekers], I described the options that they have and I was clear that they would not be settled in Australia or a third country. I did say that if they chose to return home the department would work to get them home safely, with no guarantee of any time frames. The transferees were visibly upset and quite anxious, they were quite adamant that I would be sending them home to their death.”
Neuss appeared to be responding to a request emailed by a departmental assistant secretary, Tim Ricketts, four days earlier, in which he stated with regards to the Syrians on Manus Island: “are we in ‘ultimatum’ territory (we want to know if you are signing up for VR [voluntary return] or not?) or can we hint that departing from PNG doesn’t necessarily mean returning to Syria?”.
Ricketts has been told by Hasan Sowaid, the New South Wales director of detention case resolution in the department, they should think “long and hard about routing and putting these folks on a plane by themselves” without an escort.
Neuss sent another email on 26 January, six days after the Syrians said they faced death if returned, stating she has offered them a return to Syria again: ‘I met with three of the Syrian transferees yesterday, two of which are on PSP. I read the answers out to their questions. They were all accepting of the information, as you can imagine they are all very concerned for their families back in Syria. The main question that came out of our discussion was ‘what is the travel route we will take? How are we going to get home to our families safely?’”.
Guardian Australia has reported the contents of meeting minutes showing that two of the Syrians were on the psychological support programme on Manus Island, meaning they had severe mental health issues. One is described as “not taking any responsibility for his own behaviour”.
It is understood none of the five Syrians on Manus Island went ahead with the repatriation. A number of them have been on a long-term hunger strike and all were split up within the centre to “keep them quiet”.
‘Hope these [identity documents] will be considered favourably by the [Syrian consul general]’
The disclosures also show that Syrians detained on Nauru have been offered repatriation, with departmental officials liaising with the Syrian consulate in Australia to organise travel documents.
In early January Lucy Emery, a transferee welfare and removals officer on Nauru, wrote to Ricketts and Timothy Bryant, another assistant secretary, indicating that a Syrian on Nauru wanted to be repatriated and seeking advice on what documentation would be needed because the man was born in Palestine.
Bryant wrote back: “I’m keen to prepare the strongest application we can for submission to the Syrian authorities. We will get better traction with the Syrian C-G [consul general] if we approach them with a complete travel document application with a formal, supportive covering letter from the department.”
Later emails – from another departmental removals officer on Nauru, Tim Kemp – indicated the Syrian would disclose any of his identification documents to Syrian authorities to facilitate return. Bryant later confirmed copies of the identity documents have been sent to the Syrian consulate: “Hope these will be considered favourably by the C-G,” he wrote.
A later email in March, sent by immigration staff at Sydney airport, showed a planned return of a Syrian detainee for 7 April. “Escorts and RLOs will be accompanying detainee to Syria via Abu Dhabi and Amman,” the official wrote.
The Australian immigration minister has not responded to questions over whether the return went ahead.
‘Doing the unthinkable’
Elaine Pearson, the Australia director at Human Rights Watch, said the correspondence highlighted that Australia was doing the “unthinkable” by endeavouring to return Syrians.
“While Syrian authorities are committing crimes against humanity including systematic killings and torture, Australia is doing the unthinkable – trying to send Syrians back home,” Pearson said.
“Even worse – authorities are actively sharing information with Syrian authorities in order to obtain travel documents which is likely to further endanger their lives.”
“Australia’s obligations under the refugee convention are to protect those fleeing persecution, not send people back to be slaughtered. Given the IOM isn’t even entertaining the idea of voluntary returns to Syria, Australia shouldn’t either,” Pearson said.
Ben Pynt, the director of advocacy at Humanitarian Research Partners, who lodged the FOI request, said any returned Syrian faced the certainty of harm.
“There isn’t a ‘mere likelihood’ that these people will be persecuted on returning to Syria. It isn’t even a ’50/50 chance’. There is an absolute certainty that these people will be harmed or killed upon their return, and the government’s reaction is to push them to go home without even listening to their claims for asylum,” Pynt said.
The Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said the emails highlighted a contradiction in messages from the Australian government.
“On the one hand the Abbott government acknowledges the massive humanitarian crisis in Syria but, on the other hand, they’re forcing refugees in Australia back to danger,” Hanson-Young said.
“The psychological pressure that is being placed on these people is extremely concerning. Many of them are on watch because of mental health concerns, but the government is still willing to send them back to potential torture and trauma in Syria.
“The lack of concern from [the] department ... about what will happen to these people when they are eventually dumped back in Syria is alarming.
Daniel Webb, the director of legal advocacy at the Human Rights Law Centre, said any coerced return to Syria would “breach international law and expose people to grave risks of serious harm”.
“The humanitarian crisis in Syria has produced almost 3 million refugees. A tiny handful have escaped and sought Australia’s protection. They’ve told authorities they’d be killed if sent back. Yet these documents show the government remains fixated on pressuring them to return,” Webb said.
“The government tries to spin its asylum-seeker policies as a humanitarian crusade to save lives at sea. But if it honestly cared about saving lives it wouldn’t be coercing Syrians to return to the risk of death.”
Morrison did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
