Australia’s asylum policy halts seekers

SYDNEY, Australia — Visitors arriving by boat at remote northern islands off this island continent who ask whether they have reached Australia might get a noncommittal reply, such as: “That depends.”

It depends on whether they plan to seek asylum, in which case their future rests on whether the island has been designated an “excised offshore place.” If it has, they are not allowed to apply for visas and must leave the island immediately, unless the immigration minister uses the office’s discretionary powers to decide otherwise.

When 14 Kurdish Turks anchored their leaky 40-foot fishing boat on Melville Island, 50 miles north of Darwin on Nov. 3, they were relieved to hear that they had reached Australia. But five hours later, they were being towed out to sea into Indonesian waters by Australian military personnel yelling “go Indonesia.”

The 14 Kurds now languish in detention in Jakarta, and it is possible that they may be returned to Turkey.

Indonesian immigration department spokesman Ade Dachlan told the Australian that he would examine assertions by the Kurds that they had been treated roughly by Australian authorities.

“What do they think Indonesia is, a trash bin for these people?” he asked the newspaper.

As Kurds fleeing Turkish rule, it was clear that the men were seeking asylum under the 1951 Refugee Convention, human rights activist said.

But hours after hearing of their arrival in Australia, Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone instructed Maj. Gen. Michael Jeffery, the governor general, to sign regulations retrospectively to excise Melville Island and more than 3,000 other islands from Australia’s “migration zone.”

The regulation was overturned by the Senate the following week for a period lasting until June, but the move did not come in time to help the Kurdish asylum seekers, whose fate had been sealed the moment they reached Australia.

Sen. Brian Harradine, an independent who voted against excision, said he was concerned that more parts of Australia might be excised in the future.

“I wonder if my state of Tasmania is vulnerable to excision if too many people start arriving there,” he told The Washington Times. Tasmania is an island off southeast Australia.

Mr. Harradine also expressed concern that “border protection” seems to focus exclusively on boat arrivals, with “far less emphasis given to threats to our security from people who arrive by air.”

The government is reported to be seeking legal advice to override the Senate and find ways to excise islands on an ad hoc basis as boats approach. In other words, if a refugee boat reached Melville Island between now and June, emergency measures could be put in place to excise one island or 10 islands, rather than 3,000 offshore islands.

After an upsurge in the arrival of boat people — which led to the MV Tampa crisis in 2001, in which 433 boat persons from Afghanistan, Iraq and Sri Lanka rescued by a Norwegian vessel were refused asylum in Australia — the government enacted laws banning certain remote islands for the purposes of migration, although they remain part of the country’s sovereign territory.

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