By NOEL MURPHY
SRI Lankan asylum seekers are jailed in Australia as security threats on advice to ASIO from the government they fled, according to a Geelong academic.
Deakin University’s School of International and Political Studies chair, Professor Damien Kingsbury, slammed the Australian intelligence organisation for claiming some Tamil refugees remained committed to forming a separate state in Sri Lanka.
He said the ASIO argument “coincided” with the Sri Lankan Government’s assessment of the refugees as an ongoing threat.
“The Tamil Tigers were destroyed in 2009, along with the deaths of some 40,000 civilians, and they no longer exist,” Prof Kingsbury said.
The refugees were jailed in Australia “under secret terms” that “fit neatly with Sri Lanka’s authoritarian regime”, he said.
ASIO last week claimed authorities were holding dozens of refugees indefinitely as security threats for plots to kill, forging documents and people smuggling.
Prof Kingsbury said ASIO’s failure to offer specifics backing its claims was “extraordinary”.
He suspected the Sri Lankan Government of providing “deeply biased” information to ASIO.
