Refugee activist and U of T alum Jessica Chandrashekar, along with two Australian activists, Pamela Curr and Saradha Nathan, were detained and deported by Indonesian authorities last week in Merak, in Java’s west.
The three activists were there to look at a boat carrying over 240 Sri Lankan asylum seekers that were intercepted by Indonesian authorities in October 2009. The Sri Lankans have since remained docked in Merak and refuse to leave the boat.
Indonesian officials claimed the activists approached the boat. The women deny these allegations and claim they stayed in a public area, away from the restricted area, according to the Brisbane Times.
The women were detained and questioned for 11 hours on Jan 26. After being released later that night, they were detained again for five hours the next day, Ian Rintoul from the Refugee Action Coalition told the Jarkarta Post.
Rintoul told Radio Australia that he and Nathan gave the Tamil refugees Australian humanitarian visa application forms on an earlier visit in December 2009. He said that authorities questioned the women about the visa applications, though they did not distribute any on this visit.
Nathan was suspected of being married to a human smuggler who shares the same surname, but officials realized this was an error, reported the Herald Sun, an Australian newspaper.
“My husband is a flight attendant and his surname is not Nathan,” Nathan told the Sun, and added, “Being detained and deported won’t hide the injustice of leaving the people on the boat for three months without proper support.”
On Jan. 28, Indonesian officials said the activists would be deported the next day for violating the terms of their tourist visas. They will not be allowed to return to Indonesia for six months.
“It is appalling and unacceptable that the Indonesian authorities are intimidating and discriminating these young foreign women,” wrote a spokesperson in a statement for the Coalition to Stop the War in Sri Lanka.
The CTSWSL maintains that the asylum seekers need assistance immediately.
“[The Sri Lankan asylum seekers] have been living on a boat for over 100 days and are under threat of deportation back to Sri Lanka. The refugees are suffering from a depletion of food, medical supplies, unsanitary conditions, and a lack of other basic needs.”
Chandrashekar is currently a PhD student a York University and earned her B.Sc. and an MA in women’s studies at U of T. She is an active member for the Canadian Humanitarian Appeal for Relief of Tamils.
