31st Jan 2014 06:41
Sydney (Alliance News) - Australia pledged Friday to keep turning boats back to Indonesia in defiance of Jakarta's wishes after confirming that no asylum seekers had breached its naval cordon in six weeks.
"This January is the first January where there've been no boats since 2008," Immigration Minister Scott Morrison told national broadcaster ABC.
He said it was both "policy and practice" to intercept a vessel and "remove it outside Australian territorial waters and beyond our contiguous zone."
The contiguous zone extends a further 24 nautical miles (44 kilometres) from the 12-nautical-mile territorial baseline and is where Australia is able to enforce immigration regulations.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott's conservatives threw up the cordon to fulfill a campaign promise from elections last September to stop the boats.
During the six years of the previous Labor administration, 812 boats arrived with 51,000 mostly Middle Eastern asylum seekers aboard and over 1,100 drowned while attempting the passage.
Morrison did not divulge how many boats had been removed under the new policy but Indonesian authorities and asylum seekers put the number at between five and 10 since December.
Jakarta has characterized the action of the Australian navy as "unhelpful" and withdrawn help in thwarting people-smuggling operations involving its own nationals.
The vessels which leave Indonesian ports fly Indonesian flags and are crewed by Indonesians.
"This government reserves the right to protect Australia's sovereignty by preventing any vessel illegally entering our territorial waters," Morrison said.
The government has also promised to deport asylum seekers still in the country after their appeals against initial rejection have failed. It has told the estimated 1,000 failed asylum seekers to leave of their own accord or be expelled.
In its latest global assessment, lobby group Human Rights Watch lambasted the current Australian government, and its Labor predecessor, for damaging Australia's "record and its potential to be a regional human rights leader by persistently undercutting refugee protections."
Copyright dpa
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