SYDNEY, Aug 1: The Australian government has angrily dismissed a UN report that found the conditions at the Woomera detention centre as inhumane and accused Australia of violating international treaties on human rights and on the rights of children.

The report was released on Wednesday by the UN High Commissioner and is based on the finding of its special envoy, Justice P. N. Bhagwati, who had visited the detention centre in South Australia in May.

The report described the detention of asylum seekers as a great human tragedy and said, “When Justice Bhagwati met the detainees, some of them broke down. He could see despair on their faces. He felt he was in front of a great human tragedy. He saw young boys and girls, who instead of breathing the fresh air of freedom, were confined behind spiked iron bars with gates barred and locked.”

The Australian government has rejected the suggestion that its policy of mandatory detention is inconsistent with its international obligation and says Australia has a right “to determine who will enter our borders and be permitted to remain”.

Justice Bhagwati defended his findings and told an Australian interviewer on Thursday that legality of the asylum seekers was not the subject of the report.

“My mandate was a very limited one _ to look into the conditions of detention _ and even if they came illegally and unlawfully without a visa or document, the question is were the conditions and the way they were detained, were they satisfactory or not?” he said.

The Sydney Morning Herald has quoted an official as saying the report is based on emotions and not on facts. The spokesman said the report includes “a number of emotive descriptions and assertions that have no foundation in the human rights instruments to which Australia is a party”.

Following the release of the report, the Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson issued a statement on Thursday saying she fully endorsed Justice Bhagwati’s findings.

According to SBS Radio, Ms Robinson urged the Australian government to review the concerns expressed in the report and seek to address them appropriately. But Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock insisted that the system is working and rejected the report as flawed. “We think that system is consistent with our human rights obligation and we are disappointed obviously that it’s a flawed report,” Mr. Ruddock told journalists on Thursday.

The President of the United Nations Association of Australia, Margaret Reynolds, has urged the government not to regard the report as a criticism and consider its positive suggestions.

All major political parties, except the ruling coalition, are united in challenging the government in Senate on its mandatory detention policy.

Greens party chief Senator Bob Brown announced on Thursday that he would introduce an amendment to the proposed law, currently before the Senate, to ban detention of child asylum seekers.

He says the move will be the first step towards abolishing Australia’s mandatory detention system.

The opposition Labor Party has indicated it will support the move. It is understood that Democrats will also support the Greens’ proposal as one of their Senators, Andrew Bartlett, termed Australia’s detention policy the worst in the world.

BAKHTIARI BROTHERS: 13-year-old Alamdar Bakhtiari, one of the two brothers who were in headlines last week when they escaped the Woomera centre and applied for asylum in Britain, was again in trouble during fresh violence at Woomera.