Amnesty International has issued a brutal smack-down of the coalition’s plan to review the security clearances of Palestinian visa holders fleeing the genocide in Gaza.

In a statement which has just been circulated to Australian media outlets, Amnesty says it is

extremely concerned about the plight of Palestinian women, men and children who have fled Israel’s ongoing genocide, marked by horrific bombardment, forced displacement and weaponised starvation.

It points out that ASIO has already checked each applicant.

Mohamed Duar, Amnesty International’s Occupied Palestinian Territory spokesperson, says:

Palestinians arriving in Australia are ordinary women, men and children escaping genocide inflicted by Israel. They are survivors of a brutal military campaign that has forced them to endure war crime after war crime. Palestinian visa holders who have arrived in Australia have already undergone extensive security assessments, including by ASIO, which represent a far higher standard than any other group. For Dutton to demand their rescreening as part of an election campaign is inflammatory, discriminatory and a clear demonstration of anit-Palestinian racism being weaponised in an effort to win votes.

Amnesty says Peter Dutton‘s rhetoric on this issue blatantly disregards the lived
reality of Palestinians enduring genocide, an unlawful military occupation and a dehumanising system of apartheid.

More than 51,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, over 117,000 wounded and thousands of bodies remain trapped beneath the rubble. Those who survive and flee these horrors deserve protection— not to be targeted or alienated through divisive political tactics. Current humanitarian pathways are grossly inadequate and must be substantially revised to address the scale of suffering caused by the ongoing genocide.