Sunday, 10th August 2014
By Hiran Kulatillake
It behooves me to express my views about the contents of the article written by Emily Howie, that Sri Lanka is a “refugee-producing country”. (Guardian Australia)
Emily claims to be a lawyer with the Australian Human Rights Law Centre, who is using statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts - for support rather than illumination!
She expresses her concern that most of the asylum seekers Australia returning to Sri Lanka will be charged or worse.
As a matter of fact, if anybody leaves the shores of a country illegally, they would be charged and that certainly would not amount to torture.
I personally know what lawyers do when somebody is on a fishing expedition in obtaining a refugee visa in Australia.
These lawyers, there are some notorious Sri Lankan Lawyers too who only practice Migration law, always provide the visa aspirants with the definition of a refugee - which outlines who a refugee is, and sets out the rights of individuals who would apply for asylum in Australia.
Subsequently, they are asked to write a claim in their own language. These visa aspirants are also supplied with textbooks like “Amnesty International Handbook”, some paper cuttings etc. for their reference. The definition allows applicants to conveniently frame their story which may involve some copy and paste work. After the client brings the claim back they will be further made-up to fit in properly to the UN’s refugee convention.
They frivolously connect the Defense Secretary, Ministers like Mervyn Silva, “The white van syndrome” (99 percent of the vans are white in color) to enhance their claims.
These briefless lawyers also shamelessly check for any scars, cuts or amputations, etc. of their clients and ask whether they had any falls or accidents in the recent past in order to make stories more plausible. There are instances where they would encourage clients for suicidal “attempts” or to obtain medicals to that effect. Migration lawyers charge fees from $ 5,000 to 10,000 to lodge such applications with the Department of Immigration.
Even when these protection visa applications are turned down, they assure the client that they may still stand a fair chance in the review stage which again gives them a yet another chance to charge a fee afresh.
Emily in her self-inflicted impaired vision and indecent haste writes the article in order to keep the refugee business thriving, she avoids the fact that the returned boat load had all Sinhalese which she alleges the majority, who are engaged in the factory of producing refugees.
Here she sneakily changes their aforesaid well-known phrase which she and her cohorts in deceit often used to quote “it is a mistake to think people belonging to the majority are not at risk of harm”.
Naturally lawyers like Emily get agitated when they have lost a large catch of crooks they could have represented and easily made a fortune out of them.
I am curious to know how she gathers all those falsified adverse information about the Sri Lankan armed forces and also the Immigration Department’s statistics that 99 percent of the Sri Lankan asylum-seekers arriving by boat have been found to be refugees.
Before accusing Sri Lanka to be a factory for refugees she should have referred to International Organization for Migration (IOM) who have sent back many boat people to Sri Lanka with a little cash incentive and a free air ticket.
Emily laments that those asylum-seekers will be “subject to the law of the lands”. What law does Emily expect should be applied to these people smugglers if they would not be subject to the law of Sri Lanka?
These accused are given the opportunity of retaining lawyers of their choice and are presumed to be innocent until the matter is finally heard. If they are not found guilty, they will be released with a cease and desist order to stop human smuggling.
She further alleges that detention is inherently dangerous in Sri Lanka. She may have stolen this phrase from a website which is repetitively used in protection visa (Refugee) applications in Australia, UK or Canada.
She further contends that “Any critic of the government faces serious threats to their life and personal security, including abduction, torture and enforced disappearance and death”.
I wonder whether she had read any newspapers of Sri Lanka in the recent times where she could see journalists make a good living by publishing derogatory articles of the incumbent Government. The freedom they enjoy and the transparency of the government has stood them in good stead in making hay while sun shines. Human rights has become a lucrative business for rogue journalists, so called human rights defenders and some bankrupt opposition politicians.
This is not an attempt by the Australian Government to prevent people from accessing the process and the Australian law. It is only an attempt to curb the abuse of Australia’s law and system, both by human smugglers and lawyers, which is gross injustice to the taxpayers of Australia.
Australia has returned a boatload of illegal migrants to the appropriate authorities in order to bring them to book. In doing so, they have not only discouraged human smuggling, but also prevented Australia being named as a safe haven for queue jumpers.
I wish bringing Emily’s attention to how M.A Sumanthiran (MP of TNA) ducked questions asked about boat arrivals at a recent seminar conducted by UNSW. He only made a single reference stating people make good money out of it. I am sure she would have been there on that day.
I also challenge her to expose with conclusive evidence the torture, etc. those returnees had suffered when they were returned to Sri Lanka. She may well be able to find out the same way she found out all information she had revealed in her defamatory article! The statistics she had come up with are like a bikini. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.
You are not alone Emily! You have unstinting support of Ron Merkel, George Newhouse, Malcolm Frazer, etc. who would also come to your assistance tugging their lapels of black gowns. The latter had even likened returning boat people to Sri Lanka to returning Jews to Nazi Germany. What a joke!
