Nauru eases rules at detention centre for Australia asylum seekers

YAREN – A suspended Nauru opposition MP Roland Kun says processing 600 asylum-seeker applications in one week is logistically impossible.

On Monday, Nauru’s government announced it would finalise the remaining 600 refugee claims at the Australian-run detention facility.

Kun is questioning the quality of that processing, given each application requires extensive research work.

“I think they’re just stating an intention but not being realistic as to what they can actually achieve in terms of time frames necessary to process applications.”

Kun says he is concerned about those asylum seekers whose applications for refugee status are rejected.

Nauru has also announced that, beginning on Monday, detainees will have freedom of movement on the tiny island “24 hours per day, seven days per week,” according to a statement from Nauru’s Department of Justice and Border Control.

Previously there has been a tight curfew.

Nauru said it would make its detention camp an “open centre”, allowing detainees full freedom of movement within the country of 10,000.

The Nauru government said that it would also increase the number of community liaison officials to 320 from 135, to ensure the refugees are safely integrated within the community.

The government has indicated Australia will provide more police assistance in response to the end of detention there.

Peter Dutton, Australia’s immigration minister, said in a written statement that Australia welcomed the announcements.

Nauru’s Justice Minister David Adeang said stories of attacks by locals on refugees are largely fabricated by refugee lobby groups to push their own political agendas.

“The start of detention-free processing is a landmark day for Nauru and represents an even more compassionate programme, which was always the intention of our government”, AFP reported quoting Adeang saying.

But Refugee Action Coalition spokesman Ian Rintoul said this was nothing more than self-serving rhetoric and the abuse was well documented.

Daniel Webb from the Melbourne-based Human Rights Law Centre said the transition to an open centre was an “important and hard-won improvement, but letting people go for a walk does not resolve the fundamental problems caused by indefinitely warehousing them on a tiny remote island”.

Nauru’s new open camp arrangement will be one of the issues brought before the court in a major test case which began yesterday in Australia.

The full bench of the High Court will hear a challenge to the lawfulness of the Australian government’s role in offshore detention.

The case is being run on behalf of a woman from Bangladesh who faces imminent return to Nauru with her baby after a problematic pregnancy.

It is the lead case linked to a series of challenges being run on behalf of more than 200 people in similar situations who have been brought to Australia from Nauru and Manus for the hearing.

They include men subjected to serious violence on Manus, women who have been sexually assaulted on Nauru and over 50 children, including 23 babies.

Rosie Batty, who was named Australian of the Year for her work campaigning against domestic violence, added her name to a letter last week calling for the centres to be closed.

“Those of us who care about violence against women, children and other vulnerable people at home need to care about what happens to these same people elsewhere who are under our care,” she said in the letter.

“The centres are, by their very design, unsafe and dangerous places,” she added.