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UN human rights top official slams Australia's policy on asylum seekers

Xinhua, June 16, 2015 Adjust font size:

Australia's "hostility and contempt" towards asylum seekers is "widespread among the country' s politicians," according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein also backed the finding of Australia's Human Rights Commission that the treatment of children in Australia immigration detention in Papua New Guinea and Nauru violates the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Australian media reported on Tuesday.

In an address concerning the human rights of migrants, Zeid shared his "growing alarm" at the international community's failure to protect the rights of migrants, highlighting current " lethal cases" in Europe and Southeast Asia.

"Our concerns must extend also to those attempting to enter Australia and the United States, and to the abuses of migrants that are so frequent throughout the world including many countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council as well as shocking recent violence in South Africa," he said.

Australia's response to migrant arrivals, which sees asylum seekers arriving by boat labelled as illegal entries and placed in offshore detention, has set a poor benchmark for its neighbours, Zeid said.

"Such policies should not be considered a model by any country, " he said. "Given that most of today's Australians themselves descend from migrants and given that the country maintains sizeable regular programs for migration and resettlement I am bewildered by the hostility and contempt for these women, men and children that is so widespread among the country's politicians."

One of the Abbott government's key election slogans was "stop the boats" in response to a rising number of asylum seekers boats arriving in Australian waters. In 2010, a boat carrying 90 asylum seekers, mostly from Iraq and Iran, sank in rough seas off Christmas Island, killing 48 people.

Zeid said asylum seekers in the Australian-operated detention centers on Nauru and Papua New Guinea's Manus Island faced conditions that the Special Rapporteur on Torture had labelled "as amounting to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment."

"They also violate the Convention on the Rights of the Child, as the Australian Human Rights Commission has justifiably declared. Even recognized refugees in urgent need of protection are not permitted to enter Australia, which has set up relocation arrangements with countries that may be ill-prepared to offer them any durable solution." Endi