Australia scraps restrictive asylum policy after evidence of deaths

Published: 2006-08-24

SYDNEY, Australia (CNS) -- The Australian government scrapped legislation to send asylum seekers to another country for processing after a Catholic social justice agency presented evidence that the policy had already resulted in the death of innocent people, including children. The Edmund Rice Centre, a Sydney-based Catholic social justice agency, presented evidence to the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs revealing that as many as nine asylum seekers and three of their children were killed in Afghanistan after being returned there following processing by Australian authorities on the island nation of Nauru. The legislation, which would have sent asylum seekers arriving on the mainland by boat offshore to a second country, was approved by the House of Representatives Aug. 10 and was to be debated by the Senate. It was to be an extension of the Pacific Solution, a policy of diverting asylum seekers to detention centers in Nauru and Papua New Guinea for processing before they could enter Australia. However, Prime Minister John Howard withdrew the legislation Aug. 14 after some legislators showed opposition.

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