A leading government immigration adviser has said all claims of assault experienced by asylum seekers in Australian-run detention centres should be investigated thoroughly and has no doubts many of the allegations are valid.
Paris Aristotle’s comments follow an article in the Australian on Wednesday that claimed Aristotle had warned people to be wary about believing asylum seeker claims of assault.
The article was based on an interview with Aristotle led by the Sky News political commentator Chris Kenny on Monday, in which Aristotle was questioned about Guardian Australia’s publishing of the Nauru files.
The Nauru files are the largest set of leaked documents published from inside Australia’s immigration detention system written by guards, caseworkers and teachers on Nauru, many of which contain reports of self-harm, sexual assaults, child abuse, hunger strikes, assaults and injuries.
The Australian reported that Aristotle warned during the Sky interview “that claims that were invalid, embellished or misunderstood risked insulting the people of Nauru and inflaming tensions among refugees on the island”.
While Aristotle also told Sky he did not believe abuse was occurring every day, he also said: “The sort of trenched warfare that takes place [around the issue] can sometimes distort the information that is presented from all sides. My plea around this is that we climb out of our trenches and appreciate there are no straightforward answers to this.”
He added that “I think people would have coped much better if, one, they weren’t in detention and, two, they knew always that there was a process once having been found to be a refugee that was going to lead to them being able to get on with their lives in a country that is safe and secure”.
Aristotle said that, in absence of hope for their futures, “what we’re seeing now is spiralling rates of depression and, in my view, serious risks of people self-harming, permanent psychological harm and greater risk of suicide”.
Aristotle told Guardian Australia on Wednesday that “I wouldn’t want to dispute that many claims of assault are serious and valid”.
“Even if some claims have been embellished, I am sure that enough of them are true and serious enough to give cause for concern, and the seriousness of those claims should not be diminished,” he said.
He said the assault claims brought to light through the reporting of the Nauru files were “serious and with enough validity to warrant deep and through investigation”.
But he added: “This debate has become so adversarial and conflict-based that it’s unsurprising some claims are embellished or exaggerated as a part of that.
“Regardless of whatever position people hold at present, the urgent reality is people need to be resettled as a matter of priority to safe places where they can get on with their lives.”
Aristotle has also called for greater access to offshore detention centres for the media, which he said would assist in accurate reporting and allow journalists to more easily verify claims.
