Asylum seekers who reached Cocos Islands could be back in Sri Lanka
Immigration department declines to comment but a witness says 18 adults and
seven children were taken from a Customs vessel to the airport
An asylum seeker boat that was intercepted close
to Christmas Island last year. The asylum seekers who arrived on the Cocos
Islands by boat this week appear to have been returned to Sri Lanka by the
Australian government.
Friday 6 May 2016 14.23 AEST
Asylum seekers who arrived on the Cocos Islands by boat this week appear to
have been returned to Sri Lanka by the
Australian government.
A witness on the island said that after nightfall on Thursday he saw 18
adults and seven children “of Sri Lankan appearance” brought from a Customs
vessel docked off the West Island to its wharf, Rumah Baru. They were taken to
the airport.
The local, who declined to be named, said the transfer was “done cloak and
dagger style”. Cardboard had been placed over the windows of the bus used to
transport the asylum seekers “to minimise people getting eyes on them”.
The aircraft took off about 9.27pm local time, watched by locals who
gathered at the airport’s chain-link fence. The witness said he and others took
photographs, and he was in negotiations to sell them to media outlets.
Another witness, who identified herself as Rosie, said she saw a charter
aircraft land and take off.
'Asylum seeker boat' arrives in the Australian territory of the Cocos
Islands
Read more
The Department of Immigration and Border Protection has declined to answer
questions about the boat’s arrival or the fate of its passengers.
However, flight records show that a plane left Cocos shortly before 9.30pm
on Friday, and arrived in Colombo, Sri Lanka, just after 4am.
The charter aircraft is owned by a company with Australian federal
government contracts, including for the immigration department.
An employee of the company hung up when asked by Guardian Australia to
confirm whether the flight was a government-contracted job.
On Monday, a wooden vessel, which observers said was probably carrying
asylum seekers from Sri Lanka based on the boat’s appearance, travelled into the islands’ bay under its own power and without
interception until it nearly made it to shore.
Witnesses believed the asylum seekers had not been brought to the islands’
main population centres, where just a few hundred people live, but instead
taken aboard the Customs ship that first responded.
Last year, four Sri Lankan asylum seekers, intercepted in a boat near the
Cocos Islands, were transferred at sea to the custody of the Sri Lankan
navy. They were interviewed at sea by border protection officials and the
interviews were then assessed by the immigration department.
“All four illegal maritime arrivals were found eligible for return,
consistent with Australia’s non-refoulement obligations,” the office of the
immigration minister, Peter Dutton, had said at
the time.
Under international law, Australia cannot send refugees back to countries
in which they may face harm, but the “enhanced screening process” used by the
Coalition and the previous Labor governments have been criticised.
Asylum seekers returned to Sri Lanka routinely face court on charges of
illegally leaving the country.
Trevor Grant of the Tamil Refugee Council said he had not had contact with
the asylum seekers from the boat that approached Cocos Islands but they would
probably be arrested in Sri Lanka.
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“They’ll be taken straight to jail, under the laws of that country and held
for some time,” he told Guardian Australia.
“One of the dangers of being returned, of course, is the Prevention of
Terrorism Act, which the Sri Lankan president said he would rescind when he got
into power but he still hasn’t done that.
“It’s one of the worst features of that government, and allows people to be
just locked up for 18 months without access to lawyers and just disappeared
into the jail system. We’re not sure exactly what their situation is but once
you’re in jail in that country, especially if you’re Tamil and had any
connection to former Tamil tigers, you’re in grave dangers.”
He dismissed the prospect that the asylum seekers might have undergone
enhanced screening by Australian officials.
“They’re asked no more than two or three questions in the space of about
two or three minutes, if that, and the government decides their situation. It’s
a laughable process.”
The 27 islands in the Cocos Keeling group, west of Christmas Island, are Australian
territory, but are closer to Indonesia than the Australian mainland.
One resident told Guardian Australia the asylum-seeker boat was first seen
by a passenger crossing between two populated islands. The authorities were
then alerted, he said.
“The [Australian federal] police were first on the scene and Customs missed
it completely. It had got so far in it was close to the shallow waters. If the
AFP hadn’t intercepted it, it might have run aground.”
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