Turkish boat people under quarantine in Jakarta

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post , Jakarta

Fourteen stranded boat people are being placed under quarantine in Jakarta, where immigration and police officers will question them to decide their fate, officials said on Tuesday.

Ade E. Dachlan, spokesman for the immigration office at the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, said the Turkish Kurds had been flown from Maluku province to Jakarta on Tuesday aboard a chartered flight.

They arrived in the capital city late on Tuesday and were immediately taken to the immigration detention center in Cengkareng, West Jakarta, said Tumpal Hutapea, head of the detention center.

"They are being dealt with by the International Office for Migration (IOM) in Jakarta. We shall be working along with the IOM on their repatriation," he told AFP.

Ade said Indonesian officials would also coordinate with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in interrogating the boat people upon their arrival here to determine whether they were asylum-seekers or not.

"We have not yet decided what to do until we know their status," he said when asked whether they would be deported.

National Police chief Gen. Da'i Bachtiar had earlier said the boat people would expelled when they arrived in Indonesia.

The Jakarta offices of IOM and UNHCR usually deal with cases of boat people in Indonesia.

The Turkish Kurds, aboard the Minasa Bone fishing boat, were towed by the Australian navy last week out to Indonesian waters four days after it reached Melville Island off the northern Australian coast.

The boat people, who sought asylum in Australia, later beached on Nov. 9 in Saumlaki town, Yamdena island, in the southeastern part of Maluku. They were then taken into custody by local police.

Local police officers said the Turkish immigrants were in poor health after sailing aboard the small boat, which was in poor condition.

Australia has taken a hard line against people-smuggling after finding organized gangs were using neighboring Indonesia as a stepping stone for Middle Eastern and Afghan asylum-seekers trying to resettle in Australia.

The controversial decision by Australia to send the boatload of asylum-seekers back to Indonesia is a disappointing breach of its obligations under international law, the UNHCR said on Tuesday.

"We are very concerned at the way that Australia handled the case, effectively barring (the 14) from seeking asylum," UNHCR spokesman Kris Kanowski was quoted by AFP as saying.

"This denial of access represents a breach of Australia's obligations under international law and undermines the system of asylum protection," he told a regular news conference in Geneva.

Unlike Indonesia, Australia was a signatory to the 1951 refugee convention, the foundation of international law for the protection of refugees, which meant it was obliged to hear requests for asylum and to resist sending anyone seeking help onward to a dangerous location, the agency explained.

The UNHCR planned to send an "official communication" to the Australian foreign ministry later in the day outlining its concerns and frustrations, as the agency had been led to believe Australia would listen to an application for asylum from the boat people, said Kanowski.