PNG kicks McKim off Manus Island

TASMANIAN Greens Senator Nick McKim has been deported from Papua New Guinea after being refused entry to a refugee processing centre.

He was instructed to leave PNG after being visited by two Immigration Department officials last night.

Senator McKim, who is on his sixth visit to Manus Island, was with refugee journalist and author Behrouz Boochani in the town of Lorengau yesterday morning when he had his passport briefly confiscated by local authorities and was stopped a short time later in the street and told he was to be deported.

“I was walking up a public road to the gates of the East Lorengau transit centre, which is one of the two centres where refugees are being kept on Manus Island,” he said from his hotel.

“I walked up to the gate and introduced myself to the guard. I said I was a Senator from Australia and I was coming to look at the conditions that refugees were being kept in.

“He said I couldn’t come in and asked to see my passport. I handed him my passport and he said ‘You can go now’.

“I said ‘I’m not leaving until you give me my passport’.

“He took it away and I sat at the gates for 20 minutes and he came back and he gave me my passport back and he said ‘you have to leave Manus Island’.”

Senator McKim said he was walking back to his hotel when he was intercepted by police.

“A Toyota LandCruiser pulled up next to me with an immigration official and four heavily-armed police officers and instructed me to get in the car,” he said.

“I asked them if they were arresting me and they said ‘no’ and I said I wasn’t getting in the car. They said they wanted to take me to the police station and I said I would walk down and meet them.”

He said it was at that point one of the officers told him he was going to be issued with a deportation notice.

“This is, I believe, an attempt to stop me from telling the truth about what’s happening here on Manus Island,” he said.

Senator McKim said he was determined to publicise the fate of refugees sent offshore by Australia.

“There’s been a veil of secrecy draped over Manus Island and Port Moresby and also Nauru,” he said.

“I make no apology for telling the truth about the condition refugees are being kept in here on Manus Island.

“The overwhelming majority of people on Manus Island have been found to be genuine refugees — that means they have a well-founded fear of persecution in their home countries.

“They are owed protection by Australia under international law and the refugee convention that we’re a signatory to.”