Blame game over self immolations

NAURU – Australia’s Immigration Minister Peter Dutton says refugee advocates are to blame for two refugees setting fire to themselves on Nauru in the past week.

An Iranian man died from his injuries on Friday and a young Somali woman is in a critical condition in a Brisbane Hospital.

Dutton says advocates and others in contact with the people in Australia’s regional processing centres are encouraging them to engage in behaviour which they believe will pressure the government to bring them to Australia.

He says this behaviour has now turned to extreme acts with terrible consequences.

“Advocates who proclaim to represent and support the interests of refugees and asylum seekers must frankly hear a very clear message and I’ll repeat it again today. Their activities and these behaviours must end.”

The minister’s comments come following the second self immolation attempt in less than a week on Nauru which houses asylum seekers and refugees banned from Australia under Canberra’s hard line offshore processing policy.

Ian Rintoul of the Refugee Action Coalition says Dutton hasn’t a shred of evidence advocates are encouraging the asylum seekers.

“In fact a lot of people spend a lot of time trying to reassure people, trying to keep things calm, trying to provide people with some hope when that’s the very thing that’s being deprived of them.

Rintoul says the minister has much to explain.“Peter Dutton has to explain why someone who is on a 24 hour suicide watch in the Brisbane immigration transit accommodation is somehow deemed to be a suitable candidate to be returned to the toxic environment of Nauru.”

The refugee advocate says Dutton also needs to explain how the fragile Somali woman was allowed to leave the processing centre on Nauru and set herself alight at a bus stop.

The Australian government says 16 more mental health professionals were being deployed to Nauru. But Rintoul has labelled that a publicity stunt.

“Unless you do something about the situation which is creating the mental distress no number of mental health workers are going to alter that situation,” he said.

Dutton says the policy aimed at stopping people smugglers will be not changing because of the recent incidents.

He says the Naur5ernment and people had been unfairly portrayed by advocates and many refugees on Nauru are building new lives there.

- RNZI