Sri Lankan refugee at a camp, near Rameshwaram, India. Sri Lankan refugees are fleeing the country after renewed attacks by the armed forces. Photo: Ilankai Tamil Sangam, USA
Image from www.australiansall.com.au
From The Age
Mr Burnside, a Queen’s counsel and president of Liberty Victoria, said Mr Andrews had used innocent people as a deterrent policy when he made it clear the reason for sending the 82 Sri Lankans to Nauru was to send a signal to people smugglers.
“Mistreating innocent people in order to influence the conduct of others is morally beyond redemption,” Mr Burnside said in an article posted on the website of community group Australians All, which was co-founded by former prime minister Malcolm Fraser.
So I guess that means my plan to imprison children born out of wedlock to punish the parents would also be wrong.
Mr Burnside said Mr Andrews had acted in breach of international treaties.
He said that if the Sri Lankans were found to be refugees, which looked likely, they would not be offered protection by Australia.
“Instead we will hawk them around the world to see if another country will take them. The effrontery of this is awesome … if history and common sense are any guide the world community will tell us to look after them ourselves.”
Mr Burnside said Mr Andrews was a devout Christian who had ignored the parable of the Good Samaritan.
“He will need a powerful anaesthetic to dull the moral pain of what he has done,” he said.
A spokeswoman for Mr Andrews said that although the Government did not provide legal assistance to the asylum seekers, it did facilitate legal access.
“They have access to phones, faxes and emails, and if people want assistance on how to contact someone, phone numbers can be provided.”
Mr Andrews’ spokeswoman said Mr Burnside had made a number of misleading and inaccurate claims in the article.
She said his claims that the Federal Government initially intended to return the men to Sri Lanka were false.
Yes of course that’s false, the Federal Government initially only wanted to return the Sri Lanakans to Indonesia who indicated they would send them straight back to Sri Lanka. Completely different. Certainly a wholly morally relevant distinction, pulling a lever that allows a train to kill five people is not the same as killing those people myself.
Read Julian Burnside’s article here.
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