Sri Lanka not safe for deportees: Social justice group

Sri Lanka is not safe for deported asylum seekers who face arrest and imprisonment, a Catholic social justice organisation says.

Edmund Rice Centre director Phil Glendenning, who recently returned from Sri Lanka, said Sri Lankan authorities took the view that any Tamil who fled the country had to be a sympathiser of the defeated Tamil Tigers.

If Singhalese, the person was regarded as a traitor, he said.

"On our most recent visit we found that all asylum seekers returned to Sri Lanka in recent months are handed over to the CID, the Sri Lankan police, and taken into custody," he said in a statement.

"Some are detained, some have been assaulted. One man who is still in jail has lost the hearing in one ear given the severity of the assault he suffered, and another has received damage to his sight.

"We hold grave concerns for the ongoing safety of these people, and of all deported asylum seekers to Sri Lanka. The absence of war there does not mean peace."

Many recent boat arrivals off Australia's west coast come from Sri Lanka, but the Australian government has imposed a three-month freeze on processing asylum claims from people fleeing the country.

With Sri Lanka's long-running civil war now over, the government has foreshadowed that more Sri Lankan asylum seekers are likely to be found not to be refugees and returned.

Mr Glendenning said he welcomed comments from Immigration Minister Chris Evans urging caution over returning asylum seekers connected to the Tamil Tigers.

"However, based on our experience, similar reservations need to be extended to all those who left Sri Lanka by unauthorised means."

Mr Glendenning said the Sri Lankan government was party to one of the most brutal wars of the last century and any guarantees of safety of returnees could not be taken seriously.

"We know that of the asylum seekers removed by Australia back to Sri Lanka in the Howard years, nine were later killed. We cannot go back to this," he said.

© The Sydney Morning Herald