Wednesday, July 25, 2012

'We live in fear every day'

July 24, 2012- Ben Doherty. -

Sri Lankan asylum seekers rejected by Australia and sent home say they have been arrested, imprisoned without trial and tortured, writes.

Sumith Balapuwaduge was arrested — and beaten — at home but his brother, Indika, never made it out of Colombo airport before being apprehended. They remain in jail two years later.

Sent home 'to arrest, torture'

SUMITH Balapuwaduge knew he was being watched, and suspected the police would come for him one day. Some months earlier, he had been forcibly returned to Sri Lanka from Australia with his brother Indika, their claims for political asylum having been rejected.

Indika never even made it out of Colombo airport and was jailed straight away. So when the police van came and parked on the sandy road outside his home, Sumith came — peaceably, his wife insists — to the front door.

Sumith Balapuwaduge and his wife Leena, with son Suhas, before Sumith tried to claim asylum. His application was rejected and he was sent home in 2009. He remains in prison, having not faced trial.

“They took him inside this house, and they beat him,” Leena tells The Age as she sits on the porch of the brightly-coloured bungalow of their family home.

“He was on the floor, they were kicking and punching him. They hit him with batons. His son Suhas, who was four, was upset, and ran into the kitchen to get a weapon, a knife, to stop them hitting his father.”

The police took no notice of the boy and took his bloodied father away.

Nearly two years on, he and Indika are still in jail. They have never had a trial. Police say they are part of a people-smuggling racket, but that case has never been made before a court.