Fiji ‘bungled’ human rights opportunity

FIJI – Fiji has bungled an opportunity to improve its human rights record after it forcibly deported a young refugee seeking asylum according to Amnesty International.

Loghman Sawari, who is 21, fled to Fiji from Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island.

He and his lawyer were on their way to meet with Immigration in Suva on Friday to seek asylum when he was stopped by police and put on a plane back to PNG.

Amnesty’s Pacific Researcher, Kate Schuetze, said Fiji had failed an important test at a time when it’s making a bid for a seat on the UN’s Human Rights Council.

“The Fijian authorities gave assurances that he would not be arrested before he had that interview.”

“He’s been let down quite seriously by those promises and I think serious questions need to be asked because this is a pretty big bungle by Fiji,” Kate Schuetze said.

Fiji’s Attorney General said he deported Sawari back to PNG because he failed to apply for asylum in the appropriate manner.

Sawari, has been arrested and charged in Port Moresby. The young man – who was mistakenly sent to Manus Island at the age of 17 despite being an unaccompanied minor, and who was later left homeless on the streets of Lae – has been charged with falsifying passport documents.

Sawari – an Ahwazi Arab who fled Iran after his two brothers were imprisoned and tortured by the Iranian regime and a cousin was publicly hanged for his opposition to the government – was found to be a refugee while detained on Manus Island.