Moving refugees from one immigration facility to another does not fix the “fundamental flaws” in Australia’s offshore processing policy, Amnesty Australia has said following news the Manus Island centre will start closing within weeks.
On Monday detainees at the Australian-run centre in Papua New Guinea were told they would have to start moving out of their compounds before demolition, beginning at the end of this month and scheduled for completion by 31 October.
“You need to consider your options,” a PNG immigration official told them. “No one will be resettled in Australia.”
On Tuesday, the Australian immigration minister, Peter Dutton, said the centre would progressively shut down.
“The centre won’t close drop dead on 31 October, they will start to decommission parts of the centre in the run-up,” he said.
Refugees were told they could settle into the PNG community, move temporarily into the East Lorengau processing centre, or return home or to a third country where they had a right to live.
Non-refugees were told they could return to their home country with financial assistance, or be deported. No financial assistance would be available after August, they were told.
The US deal, to take an unspecified number of refugees presuming they pass extreme vetting processes, remained in place and would be unaffected by the move, the PNG official said.
Kate Schuetze, Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific researcher, said there was still no clear picture of what the closure meant and warned that many refugees were fearful of moving outside the centre.
“Moving from one centre to another doesn’t really fix the fundamental flaws in this policy,” she said. “It doesn’t provide safety to refugees fleeing persecution and it potentially exposes them to violence in the community.”
Some refugees have moved to the East Lorengau transit centre but have reported facing attacks and intimidation from Papua New Guinean people.
“It’s not clear what security arrangements are going to be in place at the centre or the restrictions on their freedoms in the community.”
Schuetze noted there had been a number of attacks in the community, including the Good Friday shooting.
Schuetze said members of the Manus Island community were as much victims of the policy as detainees and integrating refugees would likely be difficult, if not impossible, because of the lack of infrastructure and mechanism in place.
“They’ve been given misinformation by the Australian government and any integration has been discouraged because the purpose [of offshore detention] has been punishment and deterrence,” she said. “[Integration] is something PNG as a nation would have limited or no capacity to do on their own.”
While the country had successfully accepted a large number of West Papuan refugees, they had much closer cultural and kinship ties, which would have greatly assisted the integration, she said.
For years, advocates and activists have been calling for governments to close the offshore detention centres but Schuetze said what was occurring now was different.
“What refugee advocates are calling for is providing for the safety of detainees … If not in Australia then another rights-protecting country,” she said. “The US arrangement may go some way to achieving that. Leaving people behind on Nauru or Manus isn’t an option.”
The progressive activist group GetUp called for detainees to be brought to Australia.
GetUp’s human rights director, Matthew Phillips, said not all detainees would be taken to the US and their safety must be ensured.
“These people have suffered enough,” he said. “We know that PNG is an incredibly unsafe place for refugees. They should just be brought to Australia.
“Just bring them to Australia. Allow them to start rebuilding their lives. We have caused enough suffering and, given the centre is closing, there remains no reason to keep people in PNG.”
The chief executive of the St Vincent de Paul Society national council also criticised the instruction given to non-refugees to return to their home country by August or be deported without assistance.
“It is not an option for asylum seekers and refugees to return to their place of origin when doing so could result in persecution or harm,” Dr John Falzon said.
“Given a deal that would see the men relocated to the US is moving too slowly, the only viable thing to do is to bring them to Australia.”
