What’s wrong with Australia’s country information reports?
What are Country Information Reports?
Australia’s Country Information Reports are reports prepared by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, or DFAT, on an asylum seeker’s country of origin. They’re required to be taken into consideration by the Department of Home Affairs, the Immigration Assessment Authority and the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. They outline things like geography, population, current and past issues, the stability of the country and how safe it is for people.
The problems with the reports
We’ll be using the reports on Sri Lanka as a case study. There have been a handful of editions of Sri Lanka’s country information report ever since DFAT first started releasing them in 2013, and they’ve come under scrutiny ever since.
For example, in 2020, the International Truth and Justice Project and the Australian Centre for International Justice wrote to DFAT relating to the accuracy, methodology and validity of the conclusions reached in DFAT’s 2019 Country Information Report on Sri Lanka.
What kind of things are we talking about here?
For example, the word Tamil rarely comes up in these reports. By using the generic language of Sri Lankans as opposed to specifying the particular ethnic minority of Tamil, the reports often obfuscates and downplays the reality of the issues facing Tamils in Sri Lanka , the prevalence of torture and violence directly contradicting findings by the US State Department, Human Rights Watch, and other independent verified sources.
An early example of this can be seen in the 2013 Country Information Report, where it says torture is prohibited by law, but “in practice, there are reports that Sri Lankan citizens of all ethnic groups have been tortured and/or abused by the Sri Lankan police and security forces.
The International Truth and Justice Project report from 2014 found that arbitrary detention, torture, and rape all increased in the post-war period. With those suspected of being connected to the Tamil Tigers being targeted.
In the 2019 report, it states “DFAT assesses that reports of torture carried out by Sri Lankan military and intelligence forces during the war and in its immediate aftermath are credible;”, “however, DFAT is unable to verify allegations of torture since 2016.”
However, the ITJP reported that between 2015 to 2017, 76 Tamils were tortured and in many cases sexually violated in illegal detention.
The information provided by DFAT and the information provided by other agencies don’t seem to reconcile.
In 2021, an influential United Kingdom tribunal found that the basis for the 2019 report’s conclusions were unclear. It went on to say “none of the sources are identified, there is no explanation as to how the information from these sources was obtained.” The panel of judges found that the it was ‘difficult to gauge’ the reliability of the sources underpinning the report.
How they’re prepared
When we asked DFAT about these issues, they said that “The Country Information Reports are developed, through a rigorous process of in-country information gathering, and extensive consultation. Country Information Reports are a snapshot in time and situations in countries can change rapidly. Over time, reports will inevitably become less current.”
However, this doesn’t appear to be a situation of ‘best information available at the time’. A lot of this this information was known at the time that these reports were created. Many organisations like RACS, the ASRC, the Human Rights Law Centre and other sources continually let DFAT know their concerns about the Country Information Report.
Why are these reports lacking in nuance and accuracy?
When we asked Professor Damien Kingsbury about this, he said ‘ Australian Country Reports, indeed any Country Reports on other countries, are always going to be influenced by the perspectives of the government of the day, and what they want out of the bilateral relationship.’
When we spoke to Avanithah Selvarajah, Senior Legal Officer at PEARL, she said “I think they're inaccurate, because if the Country Information Report was to accurately depict what life in Sri Lanka is for, particularly Tamil, the Muslim people, then it would mean accepting Tamil refugees who've come here. It would mean accepting that what the Australian government has done to these people for the last decade has been nothing short of inhumane.”
Read more here:
DFAT 2013 Country Information Report on Sri Lanka
DFAT 2019 Country Information Report on Sri Lanka