Australia: Refugee Sets Himself on Fire Protesting Detention

A protester holds a placard during a rally in support of refugees in central Sydney, Australia, October 19, 2015. | Photo: Reuters

Papua New Guinea announced that a controversial asylum-seeker camp on Manus island will close, throwing Australia's border policy into disarray. A refugee men remains in a critical condition after setting himself on fire at a refugee settlement site in Nauru, in what the Nauruan Government has described as a "political protest," on Wednesday.

The condition of the 23-year-old Iranian has not allowed authorities to transfer the man to Australia, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said on Tuesday.

Activists suggest that the decision of not transferring the man to Australia is part of Australian legislation that denies settlement to refugees attempting to reach the country by boat.

In addition, the governments of Australia and Nauru recently began convicting people for attempting suicide after other incidents of self-harm have been reported at the center.

Also on Wednesday, Papua New Guinea announced that a controversial asylum-seeker camp on Manus island will close, throwing Australia's border protection policy into disarray.

It follows a Supreme Court ruling on Tuesday that detaining people at the Australian-funded facility was unconstitutional and illegal.

"Respecting this ruling, Papua New Guinea will immediately ask the Australian government to make alternative arrangements for the asylum-seekers currently held at the Regional Processing Centre," Prime Minister Peter O'Neill said in a statement.

Dutton had previously said that about 900 men being held at the Manus Island detention center will not be brought to Australia after Papua New Guinea's Supreme Court ruled their detention was illegal.

Australia has been criticised internationally for sending asylum-seekers who attempt to enter the country by boat to remote processing centres on Manus island or the tiny Pacific outpost of Nauru, with no hope of being settled in Australia.

Earlier this year, Dutton denied 267 refugees the right to the transfer and enter the country for medical treatment saying that this puts the country's security at risk.

Often, boats crowded with migrants are intercepted by Australian authorities and sent to the remote islands of Christmas and Manus in Papua New Guinea and Nauru in the South Pacific, where reports say they are kept in inhumane conditions.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has described the Nauru camp as a "not safe or appropriate environment to send vulnerable people, especially children."

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