Afghanistan’s ambassador calls for delay of asylum seeker’s deportation

Nasir Andisha says the Afghan embassy was only approached about the case late last week. Commonwealth criticised over handling of the case as lawyers for the 65-year-old Hazara man apply for an injunction.

Guardian – Afghanistan’s ambassador has raised humanitarian concerns over Australia’s handling of the case of a Hazara asylum seeker facing imminent deportation.

Nasir Andisha has criticised the commonwealth’s approach to a 65-year-old man who arrived by boat in 2011.

Lawyers for the asylum seeker applied for an injunction in the federal court in Sydney on Tuesday afternoon in an eleventh-hour bid to stop the deportation.

If unsuccessful, the asylum seeker will be put on a plane to Kabul, Afghanistan, on Tuesday night, the Refugee Action Coalition claims.

The Hazara people are a minority group that have been the victim of widespread persecution within war-torn Afghanistan.

“Reviewing the situation, particularly for the Hazaras in Quetta and some parts of Afghanistan, I think this case should have been given more time and reviewed properly,” Andisha said.

Refugee advocates claim the man, who has family in Quetta, Pakistan, is being relocated to Kabul, despite not having lived there since the 1980s and having no family or support in the city.

“As a person, as a human being, not only an ambassador, that worries me if somebody from my own family has been in this situation, or any human being, that makes you very concerned,” Andisha said.

He added the man would face a lot of challenges in Kabul.

“It’s common sense that if somebody is as old as 65, doesn’t have a support network, doesn’t have anywhere to go, you are leaving someone stranded in an airport,” he said.

Andisha said he had been told the asylum seeker would not qualify for a care package, including food, blankets and money, because he was returning involuntarily.

He said the Afghan embassy was only approached about the case late last week.

“We have not been asked to give this person a travel permit or identify this person,” he said. “So basically it’s been overlooked … the whole process we used to have.”

The Refugee Review Tribunal dealt with the Hazara man’s case in 2012 and found it would not be safe for him to live in his home province but he could live in Kabul.

Refugee Action Coalition spokesman Ian Rintoul said the man, who was illiterate, had been living in Sydney on a bridging visa since his arrival in 2011.

The Department of Immigration has been approached for comment.