Deportations research just conducted in Afghanistan by the respected Australian social justice organisation, Edmund Rice Centre, has revealed further horrors confronted by asylum seekers who have been returned there by the Australian Government.

“The Edmund Rice Centre is distressed to learn of another asylum seeker death in ‘detention’,” John Sweeney, the Centre’s coordinator of research, affirmed today.  

The Edmund Rice Centre director, Phil Glendenning, today expressed his deep sorrow at news of the weekend asylum boat disaster. “This event is an utter tragedy,” he said. “We offer heart-felt condolences to the families of all those who have perished.”

In response to last week's decision from the High Court, to disallow the deportation of asylum seekers to Malaysia, the Edmund Rice Centre sought expert legal opinion as to the effect of the ruling on possible deportations under Section 198A of the Migration Act to Nauru or to Papua New Guinea.

In the light of the High Court's Malaysia decision the Edmund Rice Centre today invited the nation's political leaders to chart a new asylum-seeker policy direction.