Mogadishu, May 23, 2016: The Greens have accused the government of “intentionally” torturing refugees, after World Vision chief executive Tim Costello raised concerns about the mental state of asylum-seekers in offshore detention.
Malcolm Turnbull yesterday deflected the criticism from the high-profile social justice campaigner, who said the government’s indefinite detention of refugees and failure to resettle them was causing serious mental harm.
“There’s no question that the psychological torture of not being able to actually resettle, and you can’t go back home, is torture,” Mr Costello told Sky News.
He pointed to the case of 21-year-old Somali woman Hodan Yasin, who set herself alight on Nauru, as an example of the mental anguish being experienced as a result of the government’s hardline asylum-seeker policies.
“Somalia is a terrifying place. You would flee that; I would flee that,” he said. “The thought of that young woman of desperation — indefinite stay on Nauru, can’t go back to Somalia, set herself on fire; that’s the sort of psychological torture I think is going on.”
Mr Costello said the “lifelong indefinite torture” in offshore detention was in contrast to the Howard government’s so-called Pacific Solution policy, which had stopped the boats, but also “quietly” resettled those found to be refugees in Australia.
The Greens seized on the comments to suggest the government-run Manus Island and Nauru detention centres were “not only torturous, but … intentionally designed to be so”.
“These camps are clearly designed to be torturous,” Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said. “This policy of offshore torture, so cherished by the Labor and Liberal parties, is destroying people right in front of our eyes.’’
Dismissing the criticism, the Prime Minister said he did not accept Mr Costello’s assessment.
“It is absolutely critical that we maintain a secure border protection policy and that is why it is absolutely critical that people who seek to come to Australia through the services of people-smugglers are not able to settle in Australia,’’ Mr Turnbull said.
“That is why the boats have stopped for over 600 days now … there have been no people-smuggling expeditions and it’s important that it stays that way.
“We are resolute on this issue. As you know, the Labor Party is hopelessly divided on it.”
Health Minister Sussan Ley also rejected the torture claim, saying she was confident the mental and physical health of asylum-seekers on Nauru was being “carefully managed by the Australian government”.
Bill Shorten, who supports the Coalition’s policy of not allowing asylum-seekers who come by boat to settle in Australia, said Mr Costello “has a point” about the “cost and the pain and the suffering of indefinite detention”.
“The best answer is to defeat the people-smugglers and make sure that the people in our care, directly or indirectly, get proper resettlement,” the Opposition Leader said.
Source: The Australian
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