A former Immigration Department officer alleged on the ABC 7:30 Report yesterday that an agenda driven from the highest office in the nation is deporting huge numbers of Asylum Seekers to their country-of-origin, putting many of them in peril.

The deportation of Asylum Seekers has long occurred and with disastrous results for some, with the discovery that some upon their return have not only been persecuted but murdered.

However the whistleblower’s allegations are disturbing because he has claimed the Prime Minister has given a directive that up to 200 Asylum Seekers soon after arrival to Australia’s shores were to be returned on a weekly basis to where they came from.

The Government recently adopted a new accelerated screening process “to justify sending some Asylum Seeker applicants home” just after their arrival.

For those sent back to Sri Lanka, they are being charged by the relative authorities upon their return for having left the country “without a valid visa.”

Testimony from relatives in Australia of Tamil Asylum Seekers who have been returned to Sri Lanka have said they are in prison, they are being beaten in their cells and they have no information as to any due process in reference to their incarceration.

Sri Lanka remains one of the world’s most dangerous nations, and a country where one is more likely “to disappear” compared to other countries. Reporters Without Borders poorly rates Sri Lanka in terms of a free press – 162nd in the world. In the last eight years nearly 50 journalists and editors have been murdered in Sri Lanka.

Lawyer David Manne told the ABC 7:30 Report, “At the end of the day, this is a very serious matter where many people appear to be being denied due process and are at risk not only of violation of their basic rights, but of serious miscarriages of justice where people could in fact be denied protection here and sent back to the prospect of real dangers such as torture or death.”

The Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) refutes that accelerated screening denies any natural rights to Asylum Seekers.

The Australian continues to stand by an argument that the civil war in Sri Lanka is over and that therefore the country is no longer dangerous. But Amnesty International and United Nations agencies disagree.

Reporters Without Borders disagrees.

But Foreign Minister Bob Carr said, “Since 2010, there has been no evidence of returnees being discriminated against or arrested, let alone tortured.”

In reference to the “returnees” not being arrested Senator Carr is definitely wrong.

DIAC whistleblower Greg Lake said, “I looked back on my experience or I was beginning to look back on some of the experiences I’d had and wondering whether or not I was part of the next horrific Australian story that we’ll reflect on in 20 or 30 years’ time and that we might have another Prime  Ministerial apology on this kind of thing.”

Mr Lake was at Christmas Island, Scherger Detention Centres and most recently at Nauru (in February 2013).

To date in less than a year, more than 1,200 Sri Lankans have been “repatriated” to Sri Lanka soon after their arrival to Australia.

Apparently accelerated screening involves a short interview and does not require an application by them to be lodged and examined.

Mr Lake said that many were sent back on their answer to a single question. He criticised this practice and intention behind this practice – which was to send as many back as possible. So far Sri Lankans are the only ones known to go through accelerated screening.

Mr Lake said the decision to deport Sri Lankan Asylum Seekers has come from “the top”. He said he was informed by DIAC management colleagues that the “Prime Minister had an expectation of 200 and preferably 400 people a week” are to be returned. If this allegation were to be true it would be quite disturbing, so disturbing that a demarcated national inquiry is required.

The Prime Minister nor any Government agency has the authority to perpetuate such an edict, formal or informal. There is evidence that Asylum Seekers who have been deported even after lengthy screening processes have been murdered let alone persecuted. One Hazara man deported by Australia and returned to Afghanistan was murdered by the Taliban in front of his fellow villagers, and his body thrown into the village well.

Whistleblower Claims Prime Minister Has Ordered 200 Asylum Seekers To Be Returned Every Week

Labor's unsuccessful policies aimed at deterring asylum seekers arriving by boat have created a system of disadvantage, destitution and arbitrary detention, probably in violation of Australia's human rights obligations, a scathing parliamentary committee report has found.

The report, from a committee chaired by Labor's former Speaker Harry Jenkins, expresses strong concerns about the human rights of asylum seekers sent for offshore processing on Nauru and Manus Island in Papua New Guinea, and about those released into likely "destitution" in the Australian community on bridging visas without work rights.

It comes as the Coalition continues its attack over the continuing boat arrivals and as the government seeks to force the Coalition to explain how it will make good on its promise to "stop the boats" within the first term of a Tony Abbott-led government.

The Coalition immigration spokesman, Scott Morrison, left open the possibility of suspending or renegotiating Australia's commitment to the UN convention on refugees, when he told Sky News on Tuesday that the way it was "woven into" Australian law was "open for discussion".

Morrison said the previous Coalition government led by John Howard had "stopped the boats" while remaining a signatory to the convention, but asked whether the option was open to suspend or withdraw that commitment. "We have always kept open that option," he said.

Australia's representative on the UN human rights commission, Richard Towle, said such a move would send a terrible signal while Australia would still have to process refugees under domestic law.

In late 2012, after receiving a report from an "expert panel", Labor reversed its previous approach to refugee policy and adopted elements similar to the former Howard government's regime, including offshore processing and an unspecified "no-advantage test" to make sure asylum seekers arriving by boat were no better off than those who stayed in refugee camps in the region.

But the committee said the test, which leaves asylum seekers with no idea how long they must wait for processing and without work rights, went further than the expert panel had envisaged and actually created "disadvantage".

The parliamentary joint committee on human rights said it was concerned the no-advantage test was resulting in "either a deliberate slowing down of processing applications for refugee status or deliberate delays in resettlement once a person has been determined to qualify as a refugee, inconsistent with the prohibition against arbitrary detention in article nine of the international covenant on civil and political rights".

It added: "In this respect the committee notes that as of late May 2013, some nine months after the adoption of the policy, processing of the claims of those who arrived by boat has not commenced in Australia or PNG and that there have been only preliminary interviews of some of those who have been transferred to Nauru.

"A failure to put in place such procedures for persons held in detention for such periods appears to the committee to constitute arbitrary detention of those who have been held for an extended period.

"The government has been unable to provide any details as to how the 'no-advantage' policy will operate in practice. It remains a vague and ill-defined principle."

The report said the removal of work rights for refugees on bridging visas, and the low income support they received (89% of unemployment benefits), "risks resulting in their destitution".

The Coalition customs spokesman, Michael Keenan, said recently the UN convention reflected the post-second world war world, not the modern world.

"This document just doesn't reflect the fact that people are now coming halfway around the world to seek asylum in a country of their choice," he said.

"In times past, if you were seeking asylum then the most likely thing that you would do is just cross over the border into a neighbouring country. You certainly wouldn't be deciding where you would like to seek asylum and then go halfway around the world to do that.

"The convention as it stands now doesn't do anything to address that situation. We have been calling for some time for that convention to be overhauled and in government we would like to work with like-minded countries to modernise it."

Independent MP Rob Oakeshott accused the Coalition of hypocrisy because it had voted down the government's attempts to send asylum seekers to Malaysia and his his own private member's bill, on the basis that Malaysia was not a signatory to the convention.

Report Tears Into Labor Asylum Boats Policies