Stunned by mass Nauru passport cancellation - Peter Law

Transcript

PETER LAW: It raises a lot of questions about the administration of law in Nauru because on appearance it would appear to be an abuse of power by the minister. Now, I can't make that statement, I'm simply speculating because we don't have any reasons, or none that I know of, that have been released about the decision. The people who are on the list, who've had their passports cancelled, are all apparently members of a group that had been at a demonstration in June of last year and were subject to charges. Now the purpose in cancelling someone's passport raises a lot of questions. This is a very basic freedom of movement that's granted to people in Nauru under the constitution and the bottom line is why would this be so? The minister has cited section 24 which gives him the discretion to do so but section 24 relies on either section 17, 18 or 19 of the Passports Act.  (Section)18, I notice potential for harmful conduct. The minister may refuse to issue a Nauruan travel document to a person who the minister believes would be likely to engage in conduct that might prejudice the security of Nauru or a foreign country. Well one really seriously doubts that that could be the issue, I suppose, on any logical or rational basis. But seemingly, perhaps that is. As I say we're speculating because those particular grounds haven't been released as far as I know.

DON WISEMAN: These abuses, legal and otherwise, have been going on for quite a long time now. It's a small community, historically, very tight knit. What's it going to do do you think to that island, that there's such an unremitting vein of nastiness coming out of this government?

PL: Well that's quite right and the fact is that it is dividing the community of Nauru very deeply and the demonstration last year was evidence of that and what we're seeing is that people are getting very very frustrated with the government. Now this government has been re-elected but there's a lot of allegations that are floating around about how that election was conducted and in the meantime there's an enormous level of frustration that's festering within the community about how people are being treated and how their rights are being taken away from them. And we've seen over the last two years, step after step, after step including the censorship laws, the taking away of any dissenting views through cancelling of Facebook options available to people, so they're really, all in all, very serious developments and I mean I am very seriously concerned. One of these orders that was issued concerned the former President Sprent Dabwido. Now he was recommended to have treatment in Australia for a medical condition. Without that treatment his health and livelihood is at serious risk so to prevent him from accessing a health system to sort out his problem is very very worrying. The government could end up with a death on their hands. And I don't say that lightly because Sprent's health, anyone's health, is a serious issue that you can't take lightly and every assistance should be given. I find it very hard to understand.