The Bishop of Parramatta, Bishop Kevin Manning, has written an open letter to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd calling on the Government to make a stand against those who “stir up xenophobia, peddle panic and oppose the rights of all people to seek asylum when faced with persecution”.
“Taking a stand against people smugglers is a laudable pursuit but not at the expense of desperate people fleeing injustice,” he wrote.
“The crisis is not so great that we need to turn people away.
“What is needed is for you (Mr Rudd), Senator Evans and the Government to resist pressures for more draconian responses to asylum seekers and continue with humane reforms to our asylum and refugee policies so that they comply with the standards set by international human rights treaties and measure up to the Australian values of compassion, ‘a fair go’ and hospitality.”
The Parramatta diocese is home to a large number of asylum seekers, humanitarian refugees and a sizeable Sri Lankan population.
That being the case, the current situation regarding the boatload of Sri Lankan asylum seekers returned to Indonesia is “particularly worrying”, the bishop said.
“Your government is to be congratulated on the important changes you have made to the situation of refugees and asylum seekers coming to Australia,” he said.
“The abolition of the temporary protection visa, the closing down of Manus Island and Nauru, and the elimination of charges for stays in detention centres have transformed the lives of people seeking asylum in our country.
“It would be a tragedy if these positive changes were to be undermined by an over-reaction to those accusing your government of being ‘soft’ on asylum seekers.”
He continued: “As you are aware around 250,000 internally displaced Tamils have been, for the past five months, segregated into camps in Sri Lanka with extremely poor facilities and limited access to aid from NGOs. Reports indicate increasing levels of desperation when faced with water shortages, sickness and limited food supplies.
“I have been the recipient of many letters and phone calls from the Tamil community in Australia asking me to intervene on behalf of the Tamils in these camps. Such desperation is always a ‘push’ factor when it comes to people making risky escapes from intolerable situations.
“Few would deny that the Sri Lankan Tamils are being persecuted, that their freedom is curtailed and that, in many cases, their lives are in danger. It was most unfortunate that you described them as ‘illegal immigrants’ when they are, in fact, seeking asylum – a fundamental human right.”
Bishop Manning said returning the recent boatload of Sri Lankan asylum seekers to Indonesia places legitimate asylum seekers “at the mercy of a poor country” with few resources, already over-stretched trying to deal with hundreds of abandoned asylum seekers eking out a tenuous existence in Indonesian coastal towns.
“From a global perspective we accept very few asylum seekers,” he said. “This year we have received around 1500 boat arrivals in comparison with a country such as Italy which, in 2008, took in 36,000.
“Article 33 of the Refugee Convention of 1951 says: “No contracting State shall expel or return … a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.”
“Australia is a signatory to that convention. We are a country richly endowed with a strong political system, many resources, a harmonious, multi-cultural population and considerable wealth. We can afford to be generous, welcoming and hospitable.”
Bishop Manning’s comments were echoed by Bishop Pat Power, the auxiliary bishop of Canberra-Goulburn, who told Melbourne’s Age newspaper that the Government has been “a disgrace on this issue. It is gutless. It has been suckered”.
In an interview with AAP the bishop also likened the Federal Government’s asylum seeker deal with Indonesia to the ‘Pacific Solution’ of the Howard Government.
“It’s a case of out of sight, out of mind,” he said.Australian Bishop invites Prim
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