The Truth Behind Operation Sovereign Borders, and the Alternative to It
Date/Time
Date(s) - Mon 13 Apr 2015
18:30 - 20:00
Location
Haydon-Allen Lecture Theatre ("The Tank")
Categories
Speakers include Prof Bill Maley, Vice President of the Refugee Council of Australia.
In his first speech after being appointed last year, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees explicitly criticised the breaches of human rights in Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers and refugees. In February, the Australian Human Rights Commission exposed and condemned the practice of locking up children. In the last month, the UN’s special rapporteur on torture found that Australia’s off-shore detention centres at Manus Island and Nauru breach UN guidelines on torture. Numerous medical professionals who have worked in the detention centres have documented the terrible psychological damage being done to the people in these places. The Federal government has refused to accept any of these charges and, in each case, it has maligned those making them.
Yet there is a simple alternative to the cruel policies we now have. The alternative is to take our realistic share of refugees, to process their applications rapidly and to transport safely to Australia those who are successful. Much of this alternative was what the country used to do during the resettlement of Indochinese refugees in the late 1970s and the 1980s.
This meeting will outline the huge costs of the current policies to the asylum seekers, to our international reputation and to our values. It will also put forward a concrete and realistic alternative to them.
