Category Archives: Manus Island

‘Incredible failure’: KPMG rejects claims it assessed ‘the wrong company’ before $423m payment to Paladin

Posted on by

Exclusive: Firm’s denial comes after weeks of intense criticism, including accusations that it misled parliament

• Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast

Consultancy firm KPMG Australia has rejected claims it conducted due diligence on “the wrong company” before the federal government gave nearly half a billion dollars to a controversial company with no track record.

The firm’s objection to comments by a member of a Senate inquiry examining its conduct come after weeks of intense criticism and accusations it repeatedly misled parliament over its use of so-called power maps, which identify influential decision makers within departments.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Last refugees in Papua New Guinea to begin leaving ‘within weeks’ after Australian funding runs out

Posted on by

Exclusive: Men left without healthcare and facing eviction, while local businesses are owned tens of millions of dollars

The final group of refugees still held in Papua New Guinea a decade after being exiled there by Australia will begin leaving “within weeks”, the country’s migration chief has committed, saying the majority will be resettled in New Zealand, while those suffering acute health problems will be brought to Australia for treatment.

There is an increased urgency to resolve the situations of the final cohort of refugees and asylum seekers left in PNG after the closure of Australia’s illegal offshore detention centre on Manus Island. The Australian public money provided to PNG to care for the men following the closure of Australia’s illegal offshore detention centre on Manus Island has run out, according to PNG officials, leaving the men without vital health services and facing eviction, while local businesses are owned tens of millions of dollars.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Refugees in PNG told they will be evicted after Australian-sponsored housing bills not paid

Posted on by

Exclusive: Former Manus Island detainees facing loss of accommodation, but the Australian government claims it is no longer responsible for their welfare

Refugees exiled to Papua New Guinea by Australia have been told they will be evicted from their Australian-sponsored accommodation after bills were not paid for more than a year.

The refugees and asylum seekers were formerly detained within Australia’s Manus Island detention centre before it was ruled unlawful and ordered shut by PNG’s supreme court. About 70 men remain held in PNG, most in rented accommodation in Port Moresby.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Australia settles with family of refugee Reza Barati, murdered on Manus Island in 2014

Posted on by

Exclusive: The government has reached a confidential settlement with Barati’s family, who say they ‘fought for justice for Reza’

The Australian government has reached a confidential settlement with the family of the refugee Reza Barati, nine years after he was murdered by guards inside the Manus Island detention centre, and two years after his parents sued over his death.

Barati was 23 when he was beaten to death by guards and other contractors during a violent rampage inside the Australian-run offshore detention centre in February 2014. His assailants attacked him with a length of timber spiked with nails, repeatedly kicked and punched him once he had fallen and dropped a large rock on his head.

Continue reading...

Manus Island and Nauru: previously unseen testimony and AI imagery reveal ‘unimaginable’ part of Australian history

Posted on by

The witness statements were collected during more than 300 hours of interviews with refugees as part of a now discontinued pro bono class action

Thirty-two witness statements from refugees detained by Australia offshore on Nauru and Manus Island have been published as part of an exhibition chronicling, in graphic detail, conditions inside Australia’s offshore immigration processing centres.

The statements were collected during more than 300 hours of interviews with women and men detained offshore as part of a now discontinued pro bono class action that challenged the detention of a number of people forcibly held in immigration detention.

Continue reading...

Anthony Albanese to push ‘family-first’ security treaty in address to Papua New Guinea parliament

Posted on by

Australian PM to call for ‘a swift conclusion to negotiations’ to treaty and say both countries should ‘work as equals with our fellow Pacific states’

Anthony Albanese will seek progress on a new security treaty during a visit to Papua New Guinea, pushing a “family-first approach” amid increasing competition with China for influence in the Pacific.

On Thursday the Australian prime minister will become the first foreign government leader to address PNG’s parliament and will say he sees the relationship as “a bond between equals”.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

John Howard’s government considered letting offshore detainees into Australia in 2002

Posted on by

Cabinet papers 2002: records show there were growing concerns about management of asylum seekers in Australia’s offshore detention centres

The year 2002 started with traumatised asylum seekers sewing their lips together in protest at their incarceration, and ended with the federal government urgently planning a detention centre on Christmas Island.

John Howard and his cabinet were facing growing criticism over long-term detention as they increasingly enforced boat turnbacks and offshore detention in an effort to stop asylum seekers reaching the mainland.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Reza Barati’s parents sue Australia over son’s murder on Manus

Posted on by

Iranian asylum seeker’s family seek damages for wrongful death and mental harm

The parents of the asylum seeker Reza Barati are suing the Australian government over his murder in an offshore detention centre.

The 23-year-old Iranian was beaten to death by guards and other workers during a violent confrontation at the Manus Island detention centre in 2014.

Continue reading...

‘It was like the scene of a horror movie’: how Jaivet Ealom escaped from Manus Island

Posted on by

After fleeing persecution in Myanmar, Ealom was detained in a ‘torture camp’. Using tricks learned from Prison Break, he snuck his way out

In 2013, when Jaivet Ealom sat squeezed in a boat with other asylum seekers, he prayed, not for the first time, for an easy death. They were far from shore off the coast of Indonesia, the vessel was sinking, and Ealom could not swim.

Fishermen from a nearby island came to the rescue, hauling each passenger from the half-submerged vessel. Ealom was saved. But during the chaos, a small baby fell into the ocean. “It never resurfaced,” remembers Ealom. “[The mother] just screamed from the bottom of her lungs. It was traumatising.”

Continue reading...

More than 140 refugees in Australian detention set to be resettled in Canada under sponsorship scheme

Posted on by

Sixty-six people who’ve spent up to seven years in detention on PNG and Nauru and 78 onshore, plus their family members, passed initial approval

Almost 150 refugees held within Australia’s offshore processing system in Papua New Guinea and Nauru, or in onshore detention, are in the last stages of approval for resettlement in Canada.

The non-profit migrant and refugee settlement service Mosaic, based in Vancouver, said it had successfully submitted applications on behalf of 66 people in PNG and Nauru, a further 78 in onshore detention, and 98 family members in third countries.

Continue reading...

Kangaroo Point hotel: 19 asylum seekers forcibly removed in Brisbane as police clash with protesters

Posted on by

Men brought to Australia for medical care removed as Kangaroo Point hotel owners reclaim possession

Nineteen asylum seekers brought to Australia from Nauru and Manus Island for medical care have been forcibly removed from the the Kangaroo Point Central Hotel and Apartments in Brisbane, which was used for their long-term detention, supporters say.

It is understood they have been taken to the Brisbane Immigration Transit Accommodation Centre on the outskirts of the city, but it is unclear if the men will be held there long term or be moved to another centre or another state.

Continue reading...

Deported to danger and death: Australia returns people to violence and persecution

Posted on by

Asylum seekers forcibly returned to their home countries have faced arrest and threats. Some have died

They came for him, as he had said they would. They came for him with knives.

Samad Howladar had spent five years inside Australia’s offshore detention regime, held within the Manus Island detention centre until he was deported, in handcuffs, back to Bangladesh in March 2018.

Continue reading...

Revealed: 1,500 people in limbo under Australia’s ‘bizarre and cruel’ refugee deterrence policy

Posted on by

Australia declared in 2013 that asylum seekers who arrive by boat would never settle here. Hundreds of people’s lives are still on hold to prove that point

For more than seven years, Australia’s policy has been clear: if you seek asylum by boat you will never be settled here. You will be sent offshore and have your asylum claims heard there.

Between the declaration of that policy by prime minister Kevin Rudd on 19 July 2013 and the last transfer offshore in December 2014, Australia sent 3,127 people seeking protection as refugees to Nauru and Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island.

Continue reading...

I left Manus Island but it’s hard to feel free while my refugee brothers and sisters are still detained | Imran Mohammad Fazal Hoque

Posted on by

Those of us who have resettled in the US and other countries all left someone very close to us behind

On 19 July 2013 the Australian government announced that those who arrived by boat seeking safety would never reach the mainland. The effect of this policy is beyond description and I am still haunted by the memories of the time myself and hundreds of others were held captive on Manus Island.

The concept of a system ruining people’s lives is not easy to understand. It is complex, destructive and manipulative and every aspect is highly politicised. It is a form of systematic torture, the scars of which are not obvious, but they are real and will affect a person for the rest of his or her life.

Continue reading...

Australia’s offshore detention is unlawful, says international criminal court prosecutor

Posted on by

Treatment of refugees and asylum seekers ‘cruel, inhuman or degrading’, but does not warrant prosecution, ICC office says

Australia’s offshore detention regime is a “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment” and unlawful under international law, the international criminal court’s prosecutor has said.

But the office of the prosecutor has stopped short of deciding to prosecute the Australian government, saying that while the imprisonment of refugees and asylum seekers formed the basis of a crime against humanity, the violations did not rise to the level to warrant further investigation.

Continue reading...

New Zealand would be honoured to take Behrouz Boochani. Australia be damned | Morgan Godfery

Posted on by

The moral case for the former Manus island detainee becoming a citizen is as simple as ‘asylum is a human right’

I wonder if it winds up Peter Dutton to know that Behrouz Boochani, the Kurdish-Iranian journalist, award-winning author and former Manus Island detainee, is a free man in the continent’s orbit. Boochani, the best-known witness, critic and victim of Australia’s offshore “processing centres”, remains in New Zealand after his 30-day visa came to an end. No one quite knows what the No Friend But the Mountains author is planning next, but it seems safe to assume that sooner or later he’ll lodge an application for asylum in New Zealand. A permanent reminder to Dutton, his predecessors and the country’s immigration detention system that they are not as close to vanishing the “boat people” problem as they might have thought.

For their part New Zealand’s policymakers fear as much with headlines suggesting if Boochani’s hypothetical asylum application is successful it could “fuel tensions with Australia”. The problem is Behrouz Boochani, New Zealander, would enjoy free movement between his new home and his old incarcerators, unless Dutton and the gang insert new exceptions in the Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement. This is the “back door” the Coalition government in Canberra is so afraid of, and the political problem preventing Scott Morrison from taking up Jacinda Ardern’s invitation to resettle the last remaining detainees on Manus.

Continue reading...

‘I’m happy, but I am also broken for those left behind’: life after Manus and Nauru | Elaine Pearson

Posted on by

Resettlement in the US has allowed some long-persecuted people to flourish, but that doesn’t let Australia off the hook

“To freedom.”

Imran, a 25-year-old Rohingya refugee from Myanmar, raises a glass with a big smile. We are in a bustling restaurant on Chicago’s north side. This midwestern city seems a million miles from Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, or the tiny Pacific island nation of Nauru, yet it’s now home to several Rohingya men resettled under an agreement between Australia and the US.

Continue reading...

Police ask Clover Moore for statement on Angus Taylor – politics live

Posted on by

Sydney lord mayor approached by police investigating accusations the emissions reduction minister relied on a falsified document to attack her. Follow all the day’s political news live

That’s where we’ll leave the live blog for the day. Thanks for following along.

It’s been another messy day. Many say the medevac repeal has made it one of parliament’s darkest.

Another development on the Angus Taylor front.

The City of Sydney’s lord mayor, Clover Moore, has been approached by police to provide a statement for their investigation into accusations Taylor relied on a falsified document to attack her travel-related emissions. The council said in a statement:

Continue reading...

Behrouz Boochani, brutalised but not beaten by Manus, says simply: ‘I did my best’

Posted on by

After six hellish years inside Australia’s offshore detention regime, Boochani reflects on the country that rejected him, his new-found freedom and the friends he left behind

“One day,” Behrouz Boochani said, observing the bleakness of the abandoned Manus detention centre, its dark form illuminated by wood stripped from the buildings being burned for light, “we will meet in some other place, far away from here.”

That was two years ago, in the middle of a warm November night, when Boochani helped smuggle this reporter into the decommissioned Manus Island detention centre where 400 men were holding out against being forcibly removed: rationing their dwindling supply of food and medicine, guarding against the violent police crackdown they knew was coming, repairing the freshwater wells that had been deliberately spoiled by the retreating guards.

Continue reading...

Behrouz Boochani calls Christchurch welcome a ‘reminder of kindness’

Posted on by

Official reception highlights New Zealand’s differences with Australia over immigration

The city of Christchurch has welcomed Behrouz Boochani with a civic reception and a traditional Māori mihi whakatau – a formal welcome – as his presence, and liberty, in New Zealand once again underscores the country’s political differences with Australia over immigration.

Boochani was formally greeted from the plane by the mayor of Christchurch and the city’s Māori leaders, who told him he was welcomed by the mountains, the rivers, and the people of the city.

Continue reading...