Irony

Since 2013, the Australian government has detained refugees without trial in Pacific gulags, where they are abused, tortured, and driven to suicide. The policy is not just an abuse of human rights and possible crime against humanity; it has also had a corrosive effect on the states Australia uses as hosts. Nauru in particular has turned into a dictatorship, banning the media, evicting the opposition from parliament, and ending freedom of speech in an effort to stop criticism of the flow of Australian gulag money. And now, some of the victims of that regime are applying for asylum in Australia:

A former Nauruan politician is seeking political asylum in Australia as a retrial of anti-Government protestors kicks off in the island nation today.

Squire Jeremiah is a member of the so-called Nauru 19, a group of former opposition MPs and their supporters who were charged with rioting and disrupting the legislature over protests outside the nation's Parliament in 2015.

Mr Jeremiah and his cousin, Rutherford Jeremiah, fled to Australia in September.

He says the Government is determined to have them convicted.

And he's right. Nauru has conducted a campaign of persecution against these people, and then when the courts finally ruled it was illegal, abolished them. Now, they've bought in a Fijian judge, whose claim to fame is purportedly legalising a coup, to hear the trial. As the former chief justice says, this is simply an abuse of the judicial process.

The irony here: Australia's anti-refugee policies in the Pacific are now creating refugees in the Pacific. Its appropriate that they clean up their mess, and give sanctuary to those who they are having persecuted. If not, New Zealand should offer to help.