UN lacking the proof to cry ‘torture’

THE UN didn’t try to get a proper response from the government on its treament of asylum seekers, Tony Abbott says.

UN report.

THE UN “didn’t even bother” to get a proper response from the government before releasing a report claiming Australia exposes asylum-seekers to torture or inhumane treatment, Tony Abbott has claimed.

The Prime Minister this morning called the report, prepared by UN special rapporteur on torture Juan Mendez, “absolutely bizarre.”

“It seems that the UN rapporteur didn’t even bother ... getting a proper response from the Australian government,” Mr Abbott told Macquarie Radio.

“(It) went to the usual suspects, the usual human rights activists, accepted everything they said as gospel truth,” he said. “Now we’ve got what is supposed to be a reputable body criticising the Australian government for doing the right thing.”

THE UN’s conclusion was reached after accepting the claims of activists without hearings or independent investigation of the facts, and was based on the lack of detailed rebuttal from the ­government.

The report is based on the submissions of lobby groups such as the Australian Human Rights Law Centre and concludes: “In the absence of ­information to the contrary, the rapporteur concludes that there is substance in the allegations ­presented.”

Special rapporteur Juan Mendez, professor of human rights law in residence at the American University, yesterday confirmed he applied a procedure set up by the UN Human Rights Council to make his findings and that there were no site visits or hearings. “It (the process) is ­indeed rather limited, consisting in an exchange of notes with each government,” Professor Mendez said. “If I had had the ability to hold hearings, take testimony, on site visits, et cetera, my views might have been richer and more detailed.”

The Australian government’s formal response to Professor Mendez on the first of four complaints — specifically related to the treatment of the asylum-seekers on Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island — was a letter less than one page in length, referring to other reviews.

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However, Professor Mendez said he had good exchanges with the government “so I don’t believe the final outcomes would have been very different”. “I stand by my assessment that the immigration detention process fails to safeguard compliance with important obligations under international law, namely: fair opportunity to state a claim against refoulement; unnecessary prolonged detention of at least some individuals; and detention of migrant children,” he said.

When the new report emerged this week, finding that aspects of Australia’s asylum-seeker policies had breached the international convention against torture, Tony Abbott said Australians were sick of being lectured to by the international organisation.

“I really think Australians are sick of being lectured to by the United Nations, particularly given that we have stopped the boats and by stopping the boats, we have ended the deaths at sea,” the Prime Minister said. “The most humanitarian, the most ­decent, the most compassionate thing you can do is stop these boats because hundreds, we think about 1200 in fact, drowned at sea during the flourishing of the ­people-smuggler trade under the former government.”

Former immigration minister Amanda Vanstone yesterday expressed dismay at what she said was a discrepancy in the level and intensity of criticism of Australia’s treatment of asylum-seekers since the Coalition took office in late 2013 and stopped a wave of asylum boats and in turn dramatically reduced the number of adults and children in immigration detention.

In March 2013, when the UN special rapporteur published an equivalent report, Australia was not mentioned even though there were then almost 7000 people and 1100 children in detention on Christmas Island and the Australian mainland. More were held on Manus Island and Nauru but ­official figures were not available. yesterday. Now there are a total of 3732 people in immigration detention and 224 children. That figure includes 1004 on Manus Island, which is for adult males only. There are 117 children in various forms of detention on the Australian mainland and 107 children in detention on Nauru.

There are no children on Manus Island, the most controversial of Australia’s immigration detention centres, because of violence including a riot in February last year in which 23-year-old asylum-seeker Reza Berati was killed.

That incident was the subject of one of the cases raised with the Australian government by the special rapporteur. The special rapporteur starts his letter to the government with the preface “according to the information received”, before setting out allegations about conditions and the rioting on Manus Island.

Professor Mendez said on ABC radio: “I do give credit to Australia for having a very robust, democratic system with guarantees of human rights for everybody. But it is my mission, my duty, to point out when any country, including Australia, falls short of its obligations under international law.”

A similar letter was sent to PNG, which did not respond, meaning the special rapporteur found “the allegations presented in the initial communication are substantially proven” and that PNG had breached the asylum-seekers’ rights to be “free from torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment”.

The Prime Minister’s criticism of the UN report follows the government’s questioning of the timing of Australian Human Rights Commission president Gillian Triggs’s inquiry into children in detention, which was carried out only after a change in government.

Ms Vanstone said she was surprised Australia was criticised so harshly by the UN without a full investigation. “It does seem they have drawn their conclusions without putting allegations to any sort of vigorous test,” she said. “I am constantly amazed at the fixation on the numbers in detention by people who did not put up such a fight when the numbers were going up and up under Labor. It is amazing, the criticism now of a government that’s bringing those numbers down.”

Legal academic James Allan from the University of Queensland said the finding that Australia had engaged in torture did not deserve to be taken seriously. It had been made by a special rapporteur who reports to the UN Human Rights Council and had been based solely on allegations because it had no information to the contrary. But Professor Allan said that even if a more acceptable procedure had been used, Australia should pay no attention to a report for the UN Human Rights Council that included countries with poor records on human rights. The current members of the UN Human Rights Council include the Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Gabon, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Sierra Leone and Venezuela.

Next year, China, Cuba and Russia are among the countries due to take seats on the council, followed in 2017 by Bangladesh, Congo, Ghana, Nigeria and Qatar.

“It’s ridiculous. The people who make these calls have no democratic legitimacy,” Professor Allan said. “When Australia took the line that this committee would like, remember people drowned and there were more people in detention. And they never came and criticised us then.”

The special rapporteur had adopted a view of the world that Professor Allan said had much in common with that of Professor Triggs.

The Australian Human Rights Law Centre, which made a submission to the special rapporteur in the form of an urgent request for intervention last July, yesterday defended the role as a respected accountability mechanism.

The law centre helped trigger the second of four cases examined by the special rapporteur, saying it was concerned at the time that a boatload of Tamil asylum-seekers held at sea as part of Operation Sovereign Borders could be returned to Sri Lanka where they faced persecution.