Nauru Crisis

14 December 2003

To News Editors, Chiefs of Staff and Program Producers

Please excuse this unusual request on a Sunday afternoon.
A dire, perhaps fatal, episode in the dreadful story that started with the Tampa crisis, and became Australia's 'Pacific Solution' is now being played out on Nauru. Indeed, for the Afghan and Iraqi refugees whose flight from terror regimes ran into the 2001 Australian election, it may be the final days of their lives.
When the history of the detention camp on Nauru is written, the Australian Government's role will be one part examined. So will the role of the Australian media.
We feel quite powerless to do anything more for the 284 people still on Nauru. They are mostly Afghans, some Iraqis, one third children - that's 93 children. All detained by Australia for over two years in a disused phosphate mine, with now declining standards of care and with fading hope of a solution. They are described by the Government as 'failed asylum seekers'. We have appealed to the international community to do more, because the Australian Government is intransigent, and the Australian community is poorly informed.
There are two things you must know:
1. All the children and 90% of the adults would have proven refugee claims if there cases were heard in Australia, not Nauru - just as many of their family who are living in Australia did. This is not a blind guess; this is the logical extrapolation from Government statistics.
2. All those who can go home have gone home - those that remain are doing so because they either have refugee family here in Australia, or they fear for their lives on return. All have spent more than two years now since they were rescued by the Tampa or diverted from the other boats of 2001.
This week nine started a hunger strike, joined now by another 11, making 20 in all. We have urged them to stop but they are desperate.
An absolute suppression order has kept any media out of Nauru, other than SBS which got a reporter and a camera there early this year, through a loophole in visa arrangements that is now closed. Independent monitoring of the plight of these people has not occurred. There are no pictures in the newspapers or on TV, no stories of the effect of this stalemate on the children on Nauru.
The suppression order and the prohibition of media travelling to Nauru do not appear to have been fought by any of the Australian media, at least to our knowledge. The effort that you go to with reporting other excesses of government, and attempts to hide scandals is well known to us. Not in this case.
Please, hold the Government to account on this matter. Ask them:
· to outline what reasons they have for believing it is safe for the detainees to return to Iraq or Afghanistan, given that all returns from Australia to Iraq have been put on hold and all Afghans are being reassessed on a case by case basis, (The Afghans are mostly Hazara from Ghazni, where nine children where recently killed in US attacks against the resurgent Taliban and where a month ago a UNHCR worker was killed by the Taliban.)
· to explain why refugees in Australia are being assessed again in the light of changes in Afghanistan and Iraq, but for those in Nauru it is assumed that the situation has not changed,
· to outline what plans it has for the 93 children who remain indefinitely in the detention centre,
· to explain the lack of adequate medical attention given Jarnil Khan Hashimi and others with long-term, severe medical problems, (Jarnil has only one eye and one leg; his prosthetic limb does not fit and he is unable to walk unassisted. He is presently hospitalised after being on hunger strike for three days.) and
· to justify spending $430 million on a continuing policy (the use of Nauru as a detention centre) that has been proven redundant by the use of the navy to patrol the north-western waters.
Thank you and best wishes
Howard Glenn, National Director, A Just Australia