Sri Lanka Police Question Migrants Returned By Australia

Sri Lankan police are questioning a group of 41 asylum seekers who had been intercepted by Australian authorities in late June. 



The migrants had travelled to Australia by boat but were handed back to the Sri Lankan navy on Sunday.



"Our naval ship has brought them back to Sri Lanka, and they have been handed over to the law enforcement authorities for processing. All Sri Lankan men, 37 Sinhalese, and four Tamils were in that group,"  Naval spokesperson Commander Kosala Warnakulasuriya told the Anadolu Agency.



Australia's Immigration Minister Scott Morrison had earlier broke Australia's silence on the issue, confirming the Sri Lankan nationals had been handed back. He did not however, comment on the case of 153 other Sri Lankan asylum seekers, who Australia's high court blocked from being deported on Monday. 



Human rights observers have raised concerns about the fates of the asylum seekers who it was feared could face torture in Sri Lanka.



"Australia's moral, ethical and legal compass has been lost at sea," Trevor Grant, spokesperson for the Tamil Refugee Council told the AA. "These actions not only breach Australia's legal responsibilities under international law, but put our nation into the category of gross violators of human rights. The Australian government has reached a frightening new low as a human rights' denier and perpetrator."



The United Nations Refugee Agency had also expressed concern about the asylum seekers, saying in a statement: "International law prescribes that no individual can be returned involuntarily to a country in which he or she has a well-founded fear of persecution."



Tamil-language billboards sponsored by the Australian government have recently sprung up in the north and east of Sri Lanka -- where much of a decades-long civil war was fought -- warning of people smugglers and wasting money by trying to travel to Australia by sea. 



Radio spots and small posters have also been used to warn people against human smuggling. Many men in former war zones are unaware of stricter immigration laws and tend to consider Australia a "humanitarian country" where migrants are welcomed. 



According to the Asylum Seekers Centre's data, Australia hosts only 0.29 percent of the total number of asylum seekers in the world.



www.aa.com.tr/en - Ankara