"It's a joint effort. We're the best judges in terms of what's happening on the ground, but we're in concert because this is a partnership. We're together,"
Source/Credit: The Sydney Morning Herald
By Michael Gordon | March 23, 2013
The Abbott government was consulted and strongly backed the decision of the Papua New Guinea government to shut down a human rights inquiry into the Manus Island detention centre, Fairfax Media has been told.
PNG's Minister for Foreign Affairs and Immigration, Rimbink Pato, has also confirmed that the two governments would move to deny access of a human rights lawyer to the centre on Monday.
"It's a joint effort. We're the best judges in terms of what's happening on the ground, but we're in concert because this is a partnership. We're together," he said in an exclusive interview.
He said Immigration Minister Scott Morrison and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop shared his concern that the inquiry carried dangers and should be challenged. "They were concerned as well that we should do something like this. It's a joint thing."
Prime Minister Tony Abbott appeared unaware of the joint nature of the move, insisting to reporters on Saturday that PNG Prime Minister Peter O'Neill had not flagged it with him when they met on Friday.
Mr Pato said the government was moving on the basis that Justice David Cannings, a former human rights lawyer, was presiding over the inquiry he had initiated and that the inquiry was calling experts without complying with "proper processes under PNG law".
Mr Pato said lawyers who were not admitted to practise in PNG and medical doctors who were not registered to practise medicine in PNG would not be permitted to be involved in the inquiry.
Justice Cannings instituted his inquiry into human rights at the centre after an asylum seeker was killed and scores of others injured, allegedly after PNG nationals employed as security guards entered the centre.
When the government secured a stay on the proceedings at least until Wednesday, Justice Cannings instituted new proceedings allowing refugee lawyer Jay Williams access to the centre to see 75 of the more than 1300 asylum seekers in the centre.
But Mr Pato said the PNG government, acting in concert with Australia, would move on Monday to extend its action to include these proceedings, and so deny Mr Williams access to the facility.
He also signalled that PNG would announce the first tranche of negative decisions on asylum seeker claims as early as the next fortnight, suggesting almost 20 negative decisions would be communicated to asylum seekers.
The move to stop the inquiry came after a PNG government official shut down questions on the centre at a joint press conference of Mr Abbott and Mr O'Neill on Friday.
Mr Abbott insists he was not given advance warning of the move against the inquiry during what were described as close, constructive, candid talks on the Manus detention centre and defended PNG's "robust legal system".
He also backed Mr O'Neill's pre-emptive assessment that most of the asylum seekers interviewed so far were not "genuine referees" but "economic migrants".
"There's a lot that we've seen which justifies that suspicion," he told reporters on Saturday, citing the opinion of former Labor foreign minister Bob Carr that "the vast majority" of those coming by boat were not in genuine fear of persecution if they remained in their homelands.
Mr Abbott refused to be drawn on when and why the government had accepted that not all of those at the Manus centre found to be refugees would be resettled in PNG, or on the state of negotiations with other possible resettlement countries in the region.
Read original post here: Papua New Guinea: No human rights inquiry for Manus Island
This content-post is archived for backup and to keep archived records of any news Islam Ahmadiyya. The views expressed by the author and source of this news archive do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of Ahmadiyya Times.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you for your comments. Any comments irrelevant to the post's subject matter, containing abuses, and/or vulgar language will not be approved.