LONDON: Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer bluntly defended his country’s hard line towards asylum seekers on Monday and said it would not bow to the threat of hunger strikes and suicide pacts.

In an interview, Downer said that Australia was treating the asylum seekers in line with international law and warned that protests at four detention centres — including a death pact by children in Woomera in the desert of South Australia — would only harden public opinion against them. “Nothing is making Australians angrier than these people who, by making threats in detention centres, are trying to circumvent our immigration laws,” Downer said.

Hunger strikes by Afghan and Middle Eastern asylum seekers, protesting at the months and sometimes years it takes to process refugee claims, have spread to three other centres since about 200 detainees at the isolated Woomera refugee camp began to refuse food and water 13 days ago.

Some have tried to hang themselves. Others have drunk shampoo or disinfectant, swallowed painkillers or sewed their lips shut. Eleven Afghan children at Woomera threatened to commit suicide by Tuesday unless they were moved from the centre.

Downer dismissed their actions. “Never, never deal with Australians by threatening them. You can threaten a lot of countries but you never want to threaten Australians,” he said. Citing what he said was one of the world’s most generous immigration programmes, Downer said Australia last year welcomed 105,000 migrants into a country of 20 million people.

“But we say to the world: Do not think of coming to Australia illegally and then try to appeal to the good nature of the Australian people, in effect by threatening us. If people want to get to Australia illegally by paying “people smugglers” to get them there, then we’re not going to welcome them,” said Downer, who is in London for a meeting of Commonwealth foreign ministers on Wednesday.

The Australian Red Cross on Monday expressed its “highest concern” over the asylum issue and the United Nations refugee agency has said the standoff showed the “dangers and pitfalls of detaining asylum seekers”.

But Downer said there was little Australian love lost for those protesting in the detention centres. “The Australian people in general don’t thank people who put us under threat and try to get to our country illegally.”—Reuters