Nauru and Manus camps under fire in Amnesty annual report

Transcript

Amnesty International says Australia is among governments world-wide accused of showing more interest in protecting their national borders than the rights of those seeking refuge.

Its offshore processing camps on Nauru and Manus Island have come under scrutiny in Amnesty's annual stocktake of global human rights abuse, which highlights 2012 as a year of the largest flight from conflict and persecution since the mid-1990s.

New Zealand's disproportionate poverty levels for Pacific Islanders are also highlighted, as is a litany of abuse and torture of Papuans in Indonesia.

Grant Bayldon of the watchdog's New Zealand branch told Sally Round how the region fared.

GRANT BAYLDON: Australia's resumption of offshore processing, using Manus Island in Papua New Guinea has been highlighted in the report, and particularly for breaching the human rights of asylum seekers who were sent there. The amnesty international visit to Manus Island last year found that the conditions of asylum seekers being kept there wouldn't even meet basic conditions for cattle being kept, the conditions were so poor.

SALLY ROUND: The report notes that the death penalty is on the retreat globally. Papua New Guinea is one of the countries that's considering reactivating it, so not a report card for Papua New Guinea there.

GB: That's right. This is extremely concerning. Papua New Guinea has had the death penalty on its books consistently, but hasn't executed for many years. The proposal to bring the death penalty back, potentially, in Papua New Guinea really goes against global trends, which are away from the death penalty. Every year, more countries stop executing and we're really down to the hardcore in the world. Last year, just 21 countries actually executed - that's just over 10% of countries in the world. It's very rare to see a country go back to executing after it's stopped, and that's why we're extremely concerned about Papua New Guinea.

SR: And what has Amnesty been particularly concerned about in Fiji over the past year?

GB: We saw the continuation of the right to freedom of assembly and freedom of speech being interfered with - just basic civil and political rights in Fiji that haven't been respected. Also, over the last year we've seen some very worrying cases about torture and abuse by the security forces, including of recaptured prisoners. Unfortunately, these are part of a pattern of abuse by security forces in Fiji, and unfortunately many of those haven't been investigated properly. The Fiji government has said of the most recent allegations of torture and abuse that made the headlines when video came out of them, that they would investigate, but several months on we're still to see any evidence of an investigation taking place, and it leads us to wonder just how serious the Fiji government is about investigating its own forces. Right from the Citizens' Constitutional Forum being charged with contempt of court in Fiji for a newsletter article, through to the expulsion last year of the International Labour Organisation delegation, the military government in Fiji have been kindling a climate of fear to speak out against the government.

SR: They would say that they're just acting within the law.

GB: In terms of acting within the law they've been acting within the law to the extent that those laws have been set up by decree of a military government and breach international human rights standards and international humanitarian law. Amnesty International would say that doesn't wash for the people of Fiji and that doesn't wash internationally.