ASYLUM seekers returned to Sri Lanka by the Australian Government are in grave danger, a Catholic refugee advocate has warned.
Edmund Rice Centre director Phil Glendenning, who has recently returned from Sri Lanka, said at least nine asylum seekers returned to the country by Australia’s previous government were killed while those sent back in the past year have been detained and some assaulted.
Mr Glendenning also said Sri Lanka was “in danger of becoming a police state”.
“We found that of the 11 people removed to Sri Lanka over the course of the last year or so, that all of them had been arrested at the airport,” he said.
Brisbane priest Dominican Father Pan Jordan, who has a Tamil background, agreed with Mr Glendenning’s comments and said he had been hearing such stories “for a long time”.
“For example, earlier this year one of those aboard the asylum seeker boat held at the Indonesian port of Merak returned to Sri Lanka to visit his dying mother,” Fr Jordan said.
“He was arrested at Sri Lanka’s airport and has not been seen since.”
A spokesman for Brisbane’s Sri Lankan Catholic community Shanthie Goonetilleke said the police “were correct to arrest these people”.
“They fled the country in boats and are suspected of sometimes very serious offences,” Mr Goonetilleke said.
Mr Goonetilleke was not sure whether allegations that these people had been assaulted or killed by police were true, and said “it was only one person’s word against another’s”.
It is just over a year since the decades-long civil war between Sri Lankan government forces and the Tamil Tigers ended with a final battle in the country’s north.
More than 250,000 people trapped by the fighting were reported to have been held in detention camps although as many as 170,000 of these have now been released.
Mr Glendenning said reports by international bodies, such as the International Crisis Group, on atrocities in Sri Lanka showed these people have good reason to flee their countries.
Sri Lankan authorities took the view that any Tamil who fled the country was a sympathiser of the defeated Tamil Tigers.
“This makes the situation unsafe for returned asylum seekers,” Mr Glendenning said.
“On our most recent visit we found that all asylum seekers returned to Sri Lanka in recent months are handed over to the CID, the Sri Lankan police, and taken into custody.
“Some are detained, some have been assaulted.
“One man who is still in jail has lost the hearing in one ear given the severity of the assault he suffered, and another has received damage to his sight.”
Mr Glendenning said he welcomed comments from Australian Immigration Min-ister Chris Evans urging caution over returning asylum seekers connected to the Tamil Tigers.
“However, based on our experience, similar reservations need to be extended to all those who left Sri Lanka by unauthorised means,” he said.
“By returning these people, Australia has breached its refugee obligations.”
