Ruddock cool on Woomera visit by UN envoy
The Canberra Times
By KIRSTEN LAWSON
Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock has not guaranteed that he will allow United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson to send an envoy to inspect the Woomera detention centre.
She made the request in a meeting with Foreign Minister Alexander Downer in Geneva yesterday, saying she had serious concerns about the centre.
But she met a cool response, with a spokesman for Mr Ruddock saying such visits caused disruption at the centres and Australia was already dealing with a range of UN bodies and non-government organisations.
"We already have a whole lot of NGOs visiting and talking to detainees, including the UNHCR," he said.
"It might come down to a question of how many committees does the UN want to be visiting and talking to detainees, because we have other things that they need to do," he said.
Ms Robinson said she wanted to send a former Chief Justice of India, S. Rajendra Babu, to Woomera to "clarify" human-rights concerns.
"I would like to have a personal appraisal on the ground of the situation because it is sufficiently serious for that," she said.
When she had raised the issue with Mr Downer he had told her how popular the Government's hard-line stance was with the Australian public, Ms Robinson revealed.
"The Foreign Minister mentioned that and of course I said that human rights isn't about whether it's popular or not," she told ABC Radio. "Sometimes you have to take a human-rights stand on an issue that's quite unpopular and that's part of my job."
Ms Robinson said her envoy was "a very experienced human rights lawyer and judge and chairman of the human rights committee".
If he concluded Australia was not meeting its obligations under international law, Ms Robinson would take it first to the Government and would then pursue other "mechanisms".
Her decision to request a visit came in response to a letter last week from church and refugee groups, including the Uniting Church Victorian synod, the Catholic Commission for Justice, Development and Peace in Victoria and the Islamic Council of Victoria.
The group asked Ms Robinson to intervene in the "humanitarian crisis" at Woomera, telling her the Government had demonised refugees and systematically sought to undermine public sympathy, including its claims that boat people had thrown children overboard, a claim that may have been fabricated.
It said Woomera was a concentration camp, a harsh desert environment in extreme temperatures behind razor-wire fences. A culture of self-harm had developed there, with "suicide ideation" among young people. It was a closed institution hidden from public view or accountability.
The group said Australia was breaching its international obligations.