Australian clergy critical of government approach to asylum seekers

Sydney, August 5 (ENInews)--Australian church leaders are criticizing a
government solution to deport hundreds of asylum seekers to Malaysia as a
"swap" to settle 4000 refugees from Malaysian detention centers.

The government is funding the $292 million plan, and has said force may be
used to ensure asylum seekers board planes. The first 55 of 800
mostly-Malaysian boat people, nearly a third of whom were children, were flown to
Malaysia on 4 August.

This is "not the action of a civilized, progressive democracy," said Rod
Benson, public affairs director for the New South Wales Council of Churches.
"It's abhorrent. We are now responsible for sending 19 children, 14 of
them unaccompanied, to Malaysia--not to a detention facility, but apparently
out in the community where an uncertain fate awaits them."