Australia talks tough on asylum-seekers
SYDNEY: Australia cannot be ‘misty-eyed’ about boatpeople, the country’s prime minister said yesterday, the day after his immigration policy was thrown into disarray when Papua New Guinea ordered an offshore processing camp to close.
Malcolm Turnbull, who likely faces an election in coming weeks, said allowing even genuine refugees who arrived by boat to settle in Australia would encourage more people to make the risky journey.
“By stopping the peoplesmuggling we have stopped people drowning at sea,” he told reporters.
“We cannot be misty-eyed about this. We have to be very clear and determined in our national purpose.
Canberra has a long-standing policy of sending boatpeople to processing centres in Papua New Guinea’s Manus island and the Pacific nation of Nauru.
Applicants who are deemed legitimate refugees are offered resettlement in PNG or Cambodia, but not admitted to Australia.
The policy was dealt a blow Wednesday when the PNG government ordered the Manus island facility to close after the supreme court ruled it was unconstitutional and illegal.
Canberra officials are set to hold talks with their Port Moresby counterparts next week on what to do with the 850 or so men held there. But Turnbull was unequivocal. “They will not come to Australia. That is absolutely clear and the PNG government knows that, understands that very well,” he told reporters.
“To do that would send a signal to the people-smugglers to get back into business, and that is utterly unacceptable.
Boat arrivals have been halted since the government put in place its tough policies, compared to at least 1,200 people dying trying to reach Australia by sea between 2008 and 2013. — AFP
Police, Hindu hardliners halt church wedding
NEW DELHI: A group of hardline Hindu activists and police stormed a church in central India and stopped a wedding midway after accusing the pastor of forcefully converting the bride to Christianity, an official said yesterday.
It comes as India’s Christian minority has sounded the alarm over a recent rise in attacks on churches and members of the faith, fuelling tensions over religious freedom in the diverse, secular country. As the wedding got underway at the Church of God in India in Madhya Pradesh state, men belonging to the fringe Hindu outfit Bajrang Dal barged in accompanied by police, who arrested ten people, a church spokesman said.
Right-wing Hindu groups accuse churches and missionaries of targeting tribal people and other poor groups with the aim of converting them to Christianity, claims denied by the clergy.
“They said it is a matter of forceful conversion and arrested the bride, the groom, their parents as well pastors of two churches who were present there,” Mariyosh Joseph, a spokesman for the church in Satna district said. — AFP