Australian detention policy condemned

A United Nations human rights envoy has condemned Australia's policy of detaining asylum seekers, and has urged the government to take a more humane approach.

A report by Justice PN Bagwati, an advisor to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, raised concerns about how long asylum seekers were detained and said conditions at the controversial camp at Woomera could be considered inhuman and degrading.

It said Australia had breached the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and that the human rights situation of the detainees was a matter of serious concern.

The Australian government rejected the report as fundamentally flawed and said the mandatory detention of illegal immigrants would continue.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service