Saturday, July 28, 2012

Australia repeatedly flouted international law by locking up Indonesian teens in adult jails...

Australia has repeatedly flouted international law by locking up dozens of Indonesian teenagers in adult jails after they arrived as crew members on boats carrying asylum-seekers, according to the country’s Human Rights Commission.

In a damning report released by the commission yesterday, it said police, prosecutors and government officials used a wrist X-ray test to determine the boys’ ages even after the method was widely discredited. As a result, 15 minors were convicted of people-smuggling and incarcerated in adult prisons for nearly three years, while another 48 facing charges were locked up for more than a year.

“If that had happened to Australian children, I think the Australian public would be outraged,” the president of the human rights watchdog, Catherine Branson, QC, said yesterday.

The report’s publication coincided with news that an Australian lawyer, Peter O’Brien, is preparing to seek compensation for two Indonesian teenagers who were locked up in a Sydney jail for six months. The pair, who were 15 and 17 when they were arrested, have alleged that they were sexually abused and forced to take drugs by adult prisoners. Full story...

Related posts:
  1. Why Australia jails Indonesian kids...
  2. Indonesian fishermen bieng raped and beaten in New Zealand waters...
  3. New Zealand's sweat-shop slaves...
  4. Asylum seeker riots escalate in Australia's Christmas Island ...
  5. Asylum seekers in Australia sew their lips together in detention protest...
  6. Australia's refugee crisis...

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