MOSCOW, September 25 (RIA Novosti) – Human Rights Watch has opposed Australia's asylum-seeker resettlement deal with Cambodia that Immigration Minister Scott Morrison confirmed he will sign Friday, saying it does not meet Australia's commitment to resettle refugees in a safe third country.
"Although Cambodia is a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention, it has failed to protect refugees and asylum-seekers, returning them to countries where they faced persecution," Human Rights Watch stated Thursday.
Morrison reiterated in a press conference in Brisbane that refugees would only be resettled on a voluntary basis.
"Anyone who chooses to go to Cambodia will have chosen themselves to go to Cambodia," Morrison said.
The deal will be signed with Cambodian Interior Minister Sar Kheng in Phnom Penh on Friday. It is aimed at resettling over 1,000 refugees and asylum seekers from Nauru who have been held on Christmas Island, an Australian territory in the Indian Ocean.
In an agreement with Nauru, Australia is to resettle the refugees in a safe country despite Cambodia being one of the poorest nations in South East Asia.
"Australia's deal with Cambodia will send people to a country that has a terrible record for protecting refugees and is mired in serious human rights abuses," Elaine Pearson, Australia Human Rights Watch director said Thursday.
While negotiations on the agreement were ongoing, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) also criticized the resettlement plan.
"We're concerned that such bilateral agreements would actually involve the divesting of certain obligations under the refugee convention," UNHCR spokeswoman Vivian Tan said last week in a UNHCR report.
"We strongly believe that asylum seekers should have their claims processed in the territory in which they arrive. If found to be refugees, they should be offered protection there, with the full rights under the 1951 Refugee Convention," she added.
On Thursday, Australia submitted a new bill to parliament that eliminates the provisions of the UNHCR Refugee Convention, replacing it with an Australian law. The new bill will reintroduce the Temporary Protection Visa but it will not apply to the refugees from Nauru who were already on the Island.
The bill states that the temporary visas will be provided for a maximum of five years and that children born in detention in Australia would be considered "unauthorized maritime arrivals" under the Migration Act.
According to Human Rights Watch, Australia is "finding a new excuse to palm off the refugee problem rather than genuinely finding a regional solution that will involve Australia doing its fair share."
