The United Nations’ anti-torture watchdog has issued a blunt warning to the Australian government for dragging its feet after a failure to update progress on improving the treatment of detainees across state prisons and immigration detention facilities.
It comes almost a year and a half after a separate but related U
N human rights body suspended a tour of Australian detention facilities in October 2022 after it was denied entry to facilities, accusing the country of a “clear breach” of its obligations under Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture (Opcat).
The federal government was handed a series of recommendations to improve the rights of detainees or risk being placed on a human rights blacklist alongside such countries as South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
In a separate visit a month later, in November 2022, the UN’s primary anti-torture watchdog – the committee against torture – inspected the general conditions in Australia’s immigration and youth detention centres, putting the country’s detention regime on notice with a series of recommended improvements.
Australia was required to deliver a follow-up report in November last year, covering the implementation of those changes across three areas – general detention conditions, immigration detention and youth detention.
The report recommended Australia repeal mandatory detention laws, introduce time limits on how long someone can be held in detention for immigration issues and offer an independent complaints mechanism for detainees.
On youth detention, it also recommended raising the minimum age of criminal responsibility, prohibiting the use of force and physical constraints on children and immediately ending the use of solitary confinement.
But a letter sent to the Albanese government on Tuesday by the United Nations rapporteur, Bakhtiyar Tuzmukhamedov, said the follow-up report due in November 2023 had not been handed over and the UN was now seeking clarification.