Tamil Justice

ABC -Australian refugee activists deported

Two Australian human rights advocates who were detained and deported from Indonesia have arrived back in Sydney.

Sara Nathan and Pamela Curr travelled to Indonesia to raise awareness of the plights of 240 Sri Lankan Tamils, stranded on a boat at Merak in western Java for more than three months.

The Tamils will not leave the boat because they want to be settled in Australia.

The Indonesian Immigration Department claims Ms Nathan and Ms Curr violated their visas by entering the restricted area around the vessel.

But Ms Nathan says she and Ms Curr were deported so the Indonesian officials could make an example of them.

Ms Nathan says Australia has abandoned its commitment to refugees.

“The Australian Government should take responsibility because these people had no intention of going to Indonesia,” she said.

“They left Malaysia to come to Australia. They were 140 nautical miles away from Australia. Australia signed the UN convention in relation to refugees – we need to stick by that obligation.”

The Refugee Action Coalition says the Indonesian Government confiscated their passports, and held them in a hotel after two rounds of questioning.

The women deny entering the restricted area and say they were in the public area at the port.

The Refugee Action Coalition’s Ian Rintoul says he believes the Indonesian Government is trying to suppress information about the boat.

“Our concern is that the measures that have been taken against them really seem to be about trying to prevent the realities of the situation of the boat at Merak becoming public,” he said.

Herald Sun – Deported refugee advocate swears off Indonesia

AN Australian refugee advocate says she will never return to Indonesia after authorities there accused her of being married to a people smuggler before deporting her for alleged visa violations.

The Jakarta Post – Australian, Canadian activists freed without charge

Indonesian Police released without charge Thursday three refugee activists – two Australians and one Canadian national – who were detained in Merak, Banten, on suspicion of human trafficking.

The activists were detained when they attempted to visit a group of more than 240 Tamil asylum seekers who have been stranded on a boat at Indah Kiat Port in Merak for the past three months.

The two Australians are Tamil community activist, Sara Nathan, and Pamela Curr (not Pamela Poor as printed on this page on Thursday’s edition) from the Asylum Seeker Resource Center. The Canadian, Jessica Chandrashekar is from a humanitarian organization called the Canadian Humanitarian Appeal for Relief of Tamils.

All three are now in a hotel in Jakarta and will leave Indonesia on Friday.

Ian Rintoul, a spokesperson for the Australian refugee lobby group, the Refugee Action Coalition, said
the trio were questioned for 11 hours on Tuesday and five hours on Wednesday.

“They didn’t say they were mistreated, but they were subject to some pretty intense questioning,” Rintoul said.

He added that police allegations the trio were involved in human trafficking were “complete nonsense”.

“The police tried to make a case that ‘Nathan’ is the name of a known people smuggler associated with the boat at Merak,” Rintoul said.

“But ‘Nathan’ isn’t even Sara’s real name, it’s a shortened version of her family name, ‘Ramanathan’.”

National Police chief detective Comr. Gen. Ito Sumardi told reporters Wednesday that police had preliminary evidence suggesting the foreigners were involved in human trafficking.

This evidence may have included some Australian humanitarian visa application forms, which Nathan allegedly gave to some of the Tamil refugees in late December, 2009.

“A lot of the questioning revolved around some forms she distributed to people on the boat at Merak,” Rintoul said.

“When Sara and the others were taken to the police station, [the police] had several forms, which they had confiscated from Tamils on the boat.”

Contrary to earlier media reports, the activists were not arrested, but were held for questioning, according to Rintoul. He said the activists were in the country to meet with a number of government officials about trying to arrange humanitarian supplies for the people on the boat.

“They’re in good spirits, but a bit anxious because they didn’t think they had done anything wrong,” Rintoul said.

The writer is an intern with The Jakarta Post.