Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Rights activist furious over deportation



  Marty Silk | AAP | December 19, 2012 12:43PM | Adelaide Now
AN elderly doctor and human rights activist will complain to the Australian government, saying he was detained and deported from Singapore for political reasons.
Brian Senewiratne, 81, a long-time critic of the Sri Lankan government over its treatment of Tamils, is also threatening legal action against Singapore's immigration authorities.
"It's not surprising, but the audacity is staggering," Dr Senewiratne told AAP on Wednesday, following his detention and deportation late last week.
The practising doctor said he was stopped by authorities in Singapore while en route to speak at "invitation-only meetings" in Malaysia about the plight of Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka.
He'd then planned to head to Indonesia to do volunteer work.
But he said he was prevented from travelling on and locked in a holding room at Singapore airport for five hours without food, water or a toilet.
He was eventually put on a return flight to Brisbane.
"I wasn't allowed to use my phone or laptop," Dr Senewiratne said.
"They gave me no food or water. They wouldn't even let me go to the toilet.
"I've got heart problems. At one point by heart rate was 124 beats a minute. It's normally 60."
Dr Senewiratne said an official told him he would not be allowed to continue his journey.
"The official said: 'From Brisbane you came, to Brisbane you are going, under armed guard'."
Dr Senewiratne was put on a flight back and handed a deportation order which he said stated he was ineligible for entry into Singapore "under current immigration policies".
But he said he was not told what policies he was accused of breaching, and he'd had no response to complaints lodged with Singaporean authorities.
He said he was writing to Foreign Minister Bob Carr, and his local federal MP, former foreign minister Kevin Rudd, asking them to take up the case.
"The foreign minister is currently sitting with the man who probably organised it all, (Sri Lanka) President Mahendra Rajapaksa," said Dr Senewiratne, who still practises in Brisbane.
"I've had over 1000 emails, faxes, telephone calls and even visits just to see that I was alive because at 81 you could bloody well be dead after that treatment."
Dr Senewiratne believes the Malaysian government may have told the Sri Lankan government about his trip and it asked Malaysia to stop him going ahead.