‘Heart-breaking’: Refugees once detained offshore by Australia warn the UK government not to push through its Rwanda policy

“They stole six years of my life, and I committed no crime,” writer Behrouz Boochani tells CNN from New Zealand, where he now lives.

He does not mince his words as he describes the impact of being detained as an asylum seeker on a remote island in Papua New Guinea by the Australian government.

“I call it the machine of violence,” he says.

Fleeing persecution as a Kurd in Iran, Boochani made the treacherous journey from Indonesia to Australia by boat in 2013. At the time, under Australia’s policy of offshore detention, asylum seekers were sent to Nauru and Papua New Guinea, where they were held while their claims were processed. They were told they would never settle in Australia. Boochani was eventually able to escape after being flown to New Zealand for a literary festival to speak about an award-winning book he wrote during his time in detention; he was granted refugee status there.

Successive Australian governments have defended their policy as necessary to deter traffickers who exploit desperate asylum seekers with promises of freedom for the cost of a boat trip. They claim it saves lives that otherwise might be lost at sea.

Mostafa Azimitabar – a human rights activist and Kurd -– fled Iran in 2013 and was also sent to PNG’s Manus Island, where he spent six-and-a-half years. He was later medically evacuated to the Australian city of Melbourne, where he remained in detention in a hotel for another 18 months.

“It was the most horrible place in the world. Everything was terrible. Unhygienic. Not safe at all inside a tiny island and around us, hundreds of officers, fences, chains, handcuffs,” Azimitabar said.

Now free, these survivors of Australia’s offshore processing system fear their experience could be replicated for refugees and asylum seekers trying to reach the United Kingdom, as its government seeks to push through a controversial policy to send some asylum seekers and refugees to be processed in Rwanda.

The UK’s Safety of Rwanda Bill is due to be voted on again by lawmakers in the House of Commons on Monday before going back to the House of Lords, which has sought to make certain changes to safeguard asylum seekers’ rights.

“What I see right now is happening for refugees in England is exactly what happened to me,” Azimitabar told CNN.

“It’s heart-breaking how they are going to pass the law and exile a lot of innocent people who escaped from war and persecution,” he said.

Despite criticism from human rights bodies, Australia has not stopped its offshore processing policy. Although the Manus Island detention center closed in October 2017, the center on Nauru remains operational. Data from Australia’s Department of Home Affairs shows that as of 31 March 2024, 54 people are in immigration detention on the island.

The policy enjoys bipartisan political support in Australia, with both the coalition and Labor governments backing offshore detention. Refugee and asylum seeker issues ranked last in a list of important issues in the 2022 federal election, according to a post-vote survey cited by the Refugee Council of Australia.

‘Stop the Boats’ slogan reminiscent of Australia’s policy

Pitching the Conservative government’s bill to the British public in 2023, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak declared his government would “stop the boats” – meaning it would deter people from crossing the English Channel illegally in small boats, largely run by criminal trafficking gangs, and claiming asylum once in Britain.

The three-word slogan was the same one touted during Australia’s 2013 election campaign by Tony Abbott, ultimately credited with helping him win the battle to be prime minister.

And on face value, the UK’s proposed offshore detention policy follows a similar model to that of Australia.

Under the Rwanda bill, migrants who arrive in the UK by irregular means can be sent to the east African nation, where they will remain while their asylum claims are processed. If they are successful, they will be given refugee status in Rwanda. If they are unsuccessful, they will be able to apply for leave to stay in Rwanda on other grounds or seek asylum in a “safe country” elsewhere.

The UK plan was first announced in April 2022, but has suffered numerous legal and legislative setbacks; to date, no asylum seeker has been sent from Britain to Rwanda. Australia’s own offshore detention policy has been heavily criticized and fraught with controversy – but still seems to exert considerable appeal for some UK politicians.

Alexander Downer, a former Australian foreign minister who has publicly advocated for offshore processing centers, was asked by the British government to review the UK Border Force in 2022 and subsequently appointed to a panel set up to oversee the UK’s plan to send migrants to Rwanda. Downer served as foreign minister in Australia during its first iteration of the “Pacific Solution,” when the government started deporting refugees to islands.

But emulating Australia’s “Stop the Boats” policy will not be as easy as copying the three-word slogan, policy experts warn.

Tamara Tubakovic, a lecturer in public policy at the University of Melbourne, told CNN that an increased Australian naval presence, and better regional cooperation with neighbouring countries, appeared to have stopped people from reaching the nation’s shores, with the actual deterrent effect of the offshore policy less clear. The UK, she said, lacks the same regional support.

“It’s not necessarily the actual offshore system that was the key mechanism that worked in this case, but rather having that presence and having partners and interlocutors in Indonesia that were able to assist the Australian government to prevent people from arriving,” she said.

Stopping people smugglers

Another difference is one of scale. In 2001, before Australia implemented offshore processing, 5,516 refugees reached Australia’s shores by boat.

Comparatively, the UK government says 44,460 people were detected arriving by small boats between June 2022 and June 2023 alone, representing 85% of irregular arrivals. In 2018, the number of people detected crossing the English Channel in small boats was only 299, according to Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, but since 2020 the number has climbed sharply.

The UK government insists its Rwanda plan is aimed at disrupting people-smuggling networks and deterring migrants from making the dangerous sea journey across the busy Channel from France.

Another difference between two nations stems from the fact Australia does not have a human rights charter, Tubakovic said. She notes that the UK is still bound by human rights obligations, particularly as a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights.

In June 2022, a last-minute injunction from the European Court of Human Rights stopped a plane carrying asylum seekers and refugees from taking off for Rwanda due to potential breaches of human rights.

In November 2023, the UK Supreme Court found that the policy of removing individuals who enter the UK without authorization to Rwanda was unlawful, finding that it was not a safe destination and people who are removed from the UK “might be sent on to face persecution or human rights abuses in another country.”

‘This policy really damaged people’

All these factors come before considering the human impact of forced relocation on people already fleeing persecution.

Australia has faced strong international criticism over its offshore processing policy.

Between 2013 and 2017, refugees held in its offshore centers reported violence, abuse and a lack of access to medical care. In 2015, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture found Australia violated the rights of asylum seekers – including children – to be free from torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment due to the conditions they were exposed to.

A UN rights expert said in 2016 that the abuses uncovered in Australia’s offshore detention centers had damaged the country’s reputation on human rights. The UK government has been warned it could face the same fate if the bill is passed.

A parliamentary joint committee on human rights found “the Bill would effectively grant public authorities statutory permission to act in a manner that is incompatible with human rights standards.”

“The best thing for me to say is that Rwandans are actually seen as refugees in a lot of countries. They’re deemed as having refugee status because of the human rights abuses in their country. So, you’re essentially sending people to a country whose own people are refugees in other countries,” Tubakovic says.

For their part, both Boochani and Azimitabar have a clear message for the UK – learn from Australia’s mistakes.

“I was tortured for eight years. Mentally and physically… Of course, they (the UK government) don’t care. They are following the same politicians that hurt me. But my message to people in England is please read the story of what happened to refugees in Manus and Nauru,” Azimitabar said.

For Boochani, “many people should be aware of it. What’s happened there and how they established that system. I think the biggest thing about Manus and Nauru that people always forget is banishment itself – when you feel as a person, as a human being – when you feel that you are banished – I think that is a huge and deep violence itself.

“This policy really damaged people,” he said.

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