Anglican Communion News Service

[Adelaide Church Guardian] The National Council of Churches has raised concern about the treatment of asylum seekers by the Australian government and media, and that the church's role should be geared towards educating people for better understanding of asylum seekers' situation.

Manager of the NCCA's national program on refugees and displaced people, Sister Loreto Conroy, said they are worried about the way in which asylum seekers are being treated. She said, "We are treating people as though they aren't human-as if they have no rights."

Sister Conroy said it was a concern that even Christian welfare groups are led to believe the denigrating language of the media and government is using about the asylum seekers.

"The language the government and media are using is blowing the problem out of proportion. They are using terms like 'hoards of illegals'", she said. The term illegal is loaded. Why don't we call them asylum seekers? We're using terminology which makes them sound like criminals.

The words being used to describe asylum seekers are leading to a level of paranoia in the community. She said: "Part of the church's role in this is education. We should be helping people understand who these people are and how much suffering they have been through. We need to keep reminding people of their own gospel traditions.

The National Council of Church's Christian World Service's (CWS) director, Carolyn Kitto, has put a list of questions about conditions asylum seekers live under in detention camps. The questions were sent to members of the Human Rights Subcommittee of the joint Standing Committee of Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade.

"Non-government organisations working in the area have expressed concern about the level of access to the detainees. Previous visitors have not always been allowed to speak freely to detainees," Kitto said.