PAPUA NEW GUINEA – Some asylum seekers detained by Australia on Manus Island have been told they will have to leave Papua New Guinea.

They received the news last week in a bizarre letter from the PNG immigration authority.

It said as the men had not been found to be refugees, planning for their departure from Papua New Guinea had commenced.

They have been invited to take part in interviews to provide reasons why they should not be sent home.

The letter states: “As a routine part of departure planning the Immigration and Citizenship Service Authority has conducted a deportation risk assessment.

“This included whether there is a real risk that you will be subjected to torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, arbitrary deprivation of live or the imposition of the death penalty.

The assessment found that there is a real risk of one or more of these events and therefore the Government of Papua New Guinea will not remove you to your home country.”

The letter then states that the men had no right to remain in PNG: “You do not have a right to remain in Papua New Guinea and your removal and detention orders remain in effect.”

It said they would never be permitted to go to Australia: “You will never be permitted to go to Australia – neither the government of Papua New Guinea nor Australia will change their policies about this.”

It said they could communicate with a lawyer, although their refugee status determination process had been finalised and could not be re-opened under PNG Law.

Although those deemed to be legitimate refugees are allowed to settle in the PNG community as normal residents, those found to not be refugees are held in a separate, newly-built facility called Hillside House and have been pressured to return to their home countries, which include Iran, Somalia and Sudan

News site The Huffington Post says the refugees have been given a grim choice.

“It’s essentially putting people who need protection into limbo or detention forever,” Natasha Blucher, detention advocacy manager at the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre.

“The men detained in Hillside have limited rights to movement. There is no solution. The men who received these letters are at their wits’ end. Where can they go?”

Blucher said many of the men would be persecuted and targeted if they returned home.

“It has been acknowledged they’d face torture and death if they go home. They can’t stay in PNG. They’re not allowed to go to Australia.

“This has heaped a lot of distress onto people. It’s dangerous when you take already hopeless people and tell them there’s no solution in the foreseeable future,” she said.

“It’s something Australia could have absolutely foreseen yet failed to plan. It’s another example showing this entire system is a disaster.”

The Australian government says it no longer bears any responsibility for the asylum seekers, despite the asylum boats having been on a course for Australia and having been detained in Australian waters.

The Department of Home Affairs, which has jurisdiction over immigration, issued a one-line response to Huffington Post: “This is a matter for the PNG Government.”

Dr Maria O’Sullivan, senior lecturer at Monash University’s law school and deputy director of the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law, told HuffPost that, although fear of torture or death was not in itself a basis to claim refugee status, most developed nations offered protection for non-refugees with such fears.

“PNG can’t send them back, but they don’t have to give them a status that allows them to stay. It’s a big issue in refugee law worldwide, you don’t get sent back but you don’t have any status.”

O’Sullivan claimed the PNG government was attempting to encourage the non-refugees to go back to their home countries, regardless of the potential danger.

“You could argue it is in itself a breach of human rights to not give someone permanent status.”

- PNC sources