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Jakarta Post

Time to rethink Australian policies

Punitive policies, crafted by Australia’s politicians in a knee-jerk reaction to the hysteria surrounding people smuggling, have resulted in the jailing of hundreds of Indonesian fishermen

Melanie Morrison (The Jakarta Post)
Sydney, Australia
Sat, May 5, 2012

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Time to rethink Australian policies

P

unitive policies, crafted by Australia’s politicians in a knee-jerk reaction to the hysteria surrounding people smuggling, have resulted in the jailing of hundreds of Indonesian fishermen.

Their crime of bringing asylum seekers to Australia has seen them labeled the vilest form of human life who should “rot in hell”. The reality is that the vast majority are deckhands on these boats. These men are from some of the poorest parts of Indonesia and are economically far worse off than the people they are transporting. When recruited as crew most have no idea where they are going, who they are transporting or any knowledge of the severity of Australian law that awaits them.

Late last year tougher sentencing laws were pushed through Australia’s Parliament in an effort to bolster the government’s hard-line stance on border protection. “People smugglers” are now subject to a mandatory prison sentence of five years for assisting the passage of asylum seekers regardless of whether they are people smuggling organizers or cooks.

There are currently 453 Indonesians languishing in Australian prisons and detention centers. According to the Department of Public Prosecution, of the hundreds awaiting trial only three are considered ringleaders.

The costs of penalizing them for a crime they are unaware of are staggering. Each trial routinely costs the Australian government about US$250,000 and the bill for a year in prison is around $75,000. In the meantime, the families of these Indonesian men struggle to provide basic meals while the family breadwinners are locked up in Australian prisons.

Even more troubling is the jailing of Indonesian children. In October last year there were reportedly 50–60 Indonesian juveniles in Australian adult prisons and detention centers. Those in prisons were living alongside murderers, rapists and pedophiles. They were there because authorities relied on the discredited wrist X-ray analysis of age determination rather than the word of these young men and proof provided by their legal representatives and Indonesian consular officials.

In a clear violation of international conventions and an affront to common decency, most of these boys remained detained for months. It wasn’t until Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono met with Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard in November 2011 and reportedly raised concerns about the jailing of Indonesian minors that there was a rush of secretive releases in the December and January period.

But disturbingly some are still imprisoned. Ali Jasmin from a remote village east of Flores was as young as 13 when he was arrested as a crew in December 2009. Indonesian consular representatives say he was obviously a child but wrist X-rays indicated he was over 18. The Perth consulate even obtained a copy of Ali’s birth certificate and passed it on to the relevant Australian authorities in late 2010.

In a show of insolence, the Australian prime minister and the attorney general continue to question the validity and veracity of official Indonesian documentation. Ali is still in Albany high-security prison in Western Australia.

The Australian Human Rights Commission, which is in the middle of an inquiry into the issue of Indonesian minors incarcerated in Australia, notified the Attorney General's Department last week recommending that Ali and another 20 or so young Indonesian men have their cases reviewed on the basis that they are likely to be minors.

Adi is another young man who has been incarcerated in an adult maximum-security prison awaiting trial for over a year. He continues to maintain he was 16 when picked up off of Ashmore Reef to the south of Rote Island. He is now in immigration detention waiting to be deported.

While Adi is thankful to be heading home, he is perplexed that it’s taken so long when all his peers left months ago. He says he has not been provided with an explanation nor is likely to get one given the secrecy surrounding the prosecution process.

While Indonesian diplomats go to great lengths to avoid commenting on Australia’s legal processes, they cannot and should not ignore Australia’s treatment of their citizens. While Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa is right to be offended by recent statements made in relation to the veracity of Indonesian documentation, he should go further and publicly question the legitimacy of Australia’s policies both as they impact on detained Indonesians as well as Australia’s asylum seeker and immigration procedures in Indonesia which lie as the source of the problems.

The fact is Australia’s harsh people smuggling laws have failed to deter people smuggling. For as long as Australia continues its flawed policy of warehousing refugees in Indonesia, through its funding of the International Organization of Migration, there will be a market for people smuggling. These crew members are but victims in a complex web of policy failures, defective laws and cheap political rhetoric.

The writer is a producer/researcher at SBS TV and a member of the Australia Indonesia Association. The opinions expressed are her own.

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