Family who lived in town of Biloela should be released into community detention, the United Nations says

This article is more than 11 months old

This article is more than 11 months old

The Tamil family fighting deportation from Australia should be released from detention on Christmas Island, the United Nations has told the federal government.

The UN-issued interim measures say the Sri Lankan couple and their daughters should be “released into community setting arrangements or [the immigration department should] find another way to release them from detention within 30 days”, according to the family’s lawyer, Carina Ford.

They are non-compellable but Ford said she hoped they would be “persuasive” to the immigration department and the home affairs minister, Peter Dutton.

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Priya, Nadesalingam and their children, Kopika and Tharunicaa, were sent to Christmas Island in August after the federal court granted an injunction preventing the government deporting Tharunicaa until the court application had been heard.

An application was made to the Human Rights Committee’s special rapporteur on 27 September under the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, on behalf of the youngest girl, Tharunicaa.

Ford said the UN investigation came to its findings after looking at documents submitted by both sides – the family and Dutton.

“We were effectively asking for an alternative arrangement to them continuing to be contained,” said Ford.

The family have been on Christmas Island for a month, after the immigration department’s attempts to deport them to Sri Lanka were halted by a court injunction.

They are the only occupants of the detention centre, where they are being held in an isolated accommodation wing.

Last month Dutton said the family was not in detention but “effectively” living in the community, a claim Priya disputed, noting they could not access places Dutton cited, and had no interaction with community members.

Ford said the girls were recently allowed to access a playgroup for the first time, but the family are under constant watch by guards who all wear body cameras, which she described as unnecessary and “a huge breach of privacy”.

“There’s nowhere for them to go, it’s not like you can escape from Christmas Island and go somewhere else,” she said. “It seems unnecessarily heavy.”

Angela Fredericks, a family friend and spokesperson for the campaign to have them returned to Biloela, welcomed the UN’s assessment.

“And I would hope that the Australian government would honour their international human rights obligations,” she said.

“When I visited the family on Christmas Island last month, I was horrified to see how completely isolated the girls are from everything, even the local community on Christmas Island.

“They are watched constantly by guards, their every interaction is filmed. They do not have freedom of movement. In detention, this family merely survives. In Biloela, back in their home, they could thrive.”

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The Australian government has previously said the family won’t be returning to mainland Australia while their case is being determined.

The shadow home affairs minister, Kristina Keneally, has previously accused the government of sending them offshore “to get them out of sight of a sympathetic Australian public”.

On 19 September the federal court in Victoria found the family had a prima facie case to stay in Australia, and decided to give them a full hearing at a date yet to be determined.

The court battle centres around the fact that until last month the government hadn’t considered whether it owed Tharunicaa protection.

Nades, and separately Priya and Kopika, have all been denied refugee status in Australia. Concerns have been raised about the fast-track process used to assess Priya and Kopika, which in the past has rejected people later found to be refugees by the UN.

Dutton has repeatedly claimed the parents were told “well before they had children” that they would never stay in Australia, despite Priya not being interviewed for an assessment of her asylum claim until after Kopika was born and she was pregnant with Tharunicaa.