Rights groups slam Australia deal to ship refugees to Cambodia

A controversial refugee deal under which those seeking safe passage to Australia will instead be settled in Cambodia has been slammed by rights groups as a “new low” in Canberra’s immigration policy.

The memorandum of understanding between Australia and Phnom Penh was signed Friday, according to a press release by the Cambodian government. Under its terms, asylum seekers looking to settle in Australia — who are often intercepted offshore and sent to detention centers on the nearby islands of Papua New Guinea and Nauru — will be sent to Cambodia if processing centers determine they are recognized refugees. Australia will give $35 million in aid to Cambodia under the deal.

But the plan came under immediate attack from international rights groups.

Amnesty International released a statement condemning Australia’s “deplorable and inhumane treatment of asylum seekers.”

Australia’s Immigration Minister Scott Morrison, who signed the deal in Phnom Penh Friday, dismissed criticism that the decision to send refugees to Cambodia, one of Asia’s poorest countries, was a poor choice.

“Cambodia is so keen to join the family of countries that can provide genuine settlement,” Morrison said in an interview in Phnom Penh. “They will have an opportunity for a life here … free of the persecution that made them flee their home countries.”

Morrison emphasized that the transfer would be on a “voluntary basis,” according to a release by HRW.

Cambodia is a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention, but has failed to protect refugees and asylum seekers, sometimes returning them to the very countries in which they faced persecution, HRW said.

“In recent years the [Cambodian] government has sent vulnerable people back to countries where they faced abuse, such as China and Vietnam,” HRW said in the release. “In December 2009, Cambodia handed over 20 ethnic Uighurs, whom the United Nations High Commission for Refugees regarded as persons of concern, to Chinese government officials, who then returned them to China to secret trials and long prison sentences.”

A group of Cambodians protested outside the Australian Embassy in Phnom Penh Friday to voice opposition to the plan.

“We don’t want Cambodia to become a trash bin for unwanted refugees,” Son Chhay, an Australian citizen and Cambodian opposition lawmaker, said. “You can’t use money to impose on the corrupt government in this country to accept unwanted refugees.”

The plan’s apparent secrecy has drawn criticism, and HRW said neither of the two governments had provided details regarding housing, education or medical care for the refugees once they are sent to Cambodia.

Australia has faced mounting criticism over its strict immigration policy. A conservative government was voted into power last year partly on the back of a tough stance on asylum seekers, with Prime Minister Tony Abbott vowing to “stop the boats.” About 16,000 asylum seekers came to Australia on hundreds of boats in the first seven months of 2013, and hundreds have drowned in recent years searching for a safe place to settle. 

It began sending asylum seekers arriving by boat to Nauru and Papua New Guinea in September 2012 to be screened for refugee status. If an applicant's refugee status is confirmed, Australia would commit to help resettle the refugees in a “third safe country,” HRW said.

Since then, Australia has refused to accept those confirmed as refugees to be settled on its territory. At the end of August, there were nearly 1,300 asylum seekers detained in Nauru, according to HRW.

The asylum-seeker camp in Papua New Guinea has been criticized as “excessively cruel and prison-like,” by Amnesty International, and the UNHCR has reported that the Pacific Island camps failed to meet international standards.

Australia was also condemned for trying to send asylum seekers back to Sri Lanka this summer, where they could have faced imprisonment for leaving the country without official permission. Australia's high court issued an injunction in July to temporarily block the government’s decision.

Rights groups said Australia fails even to meet the terms of its own agreement because Cambodia is not a safe third country.  The UNHCR said the plan was not “durable."

“This agreement is putting the short-term political interests of the Australian government ahead of the protection of some of the world’s most vulnerable people — refugees,” Rupert Abbott, deputy Asia-Pacific Director for Amnesty International, said in a statement. “It makes Cambodia complicit in Australia’s human rights breaches and seriously flawed offshore processing system.”

With wire services