An online rally, organised by the Tamil Refugee Council, against the Australian government’s handling of Tamil asylum seekers took place in Sydney on Monday.
The rally came amidst continued criticism of the state’s reliance on a Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s (DFAT) report published in 2019, which it uses to determine the refugee status of any Tamils seeking asylum in Australia, despite its gross understatement of the level of risk of torture that is perpetrated against Tamils in Sri Lanka.
One of the key speakers, Journalist Bashana Abeywardane, who coordinates a group advocating for the rights of journalists in Sri Lanka, spoke to the rally from Germany, said that recently “scores of Tamils have been arrested under the Anti-Terrorism Act” and that “Tamils still face persecution for insignificant social media posts.”
The Australian government’s strict immigration policies have remained steadfast despite growing recognition of the dangers Tamil asylum seekers face when forcibly returned.
In May 2021, a UK court found a key document used by Home Affairs and tribunals in Australia to reject refugee applications for Tamils from Sri Lanka as “unreliable”. The British court further found that asylum seekers faced a serious threat of torture in Sri Lanka if forcibly deported.
Read more here: How a landmark British ruling may save Tamil activists from deportation to Sri Lanka
According to the International Truth and Justice Project, there have been 178 documented credible cases of torture from 2015-2018, excluding 22 individuals abroad who reported torture following the UN special investigation. Since Gotabaya Rajapaksa came to power in late 2019, at least 5 cases have been documented abroad of abduction, torture and sexual violence of Tamils. The ITJP notes, "this likely represents the tip of the iceberg".
Of growing concern has also been the detention of the Biloela family, a Tamil asylum seeker family that the Australian government has kept in immigration detention since March 2018 after their four-year bridging visa had expired. Their continued struggle to return to Biloela follows the death of a four-year-old Tamil boy who died in a house fire in Melbourne’s Southeast. He and his family were relocated several times following their detention at Christmas Island in 2012.
Read more here.
We need your support
Sri Lanka is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a journalist. Tamil journalists are particularly at threat, with at least 41 media workers known to have been killed by the Sri Lankan state or its paramilitaries during and after the armed conflict.
Despite the risks, our team on the ground remain committed to providing detailed and accurate reporting of developments in the Tamil homeland, across the island and around the world, as well as providing expert analysis and insight from the Tamil point of view
We need your support in keeping our journalism going. Support our work today.
For more ways to donate visit https://donate.tamilguardian.com.
