With the federal government facing more and more criticisms regarding its Malaysian asylum seekers swap deal, Immigration Minister Chris Bowen assured that asylum seekers sent from Malaysia to Australia will not be caned.

ABC News said a press report today revealed that Amnesty International discovered 6,000 detainees in Malaysia each year suffer the rattan cane that “shreds the victim’s naked skin and turns tissue into pulp”.

Despite Bowen’s announcement regarding the issue, opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison says Bowen cannot give a rock-solid responsibility that the 800 asylum seekers whom Australia plans to send to Malaysia will not be caned.

Morrison explained, "I would have thought this is a fairly fundamental, basic check-off in terms of the human rights issues that will need to be squared away if you were going to conclude this sort of deal.”

The agreement, which entails Australia accepting 4000 people from Malaysia with refugee status, has been widely criticized because Malaysia has not signed the United Nations Refugee Convention or Convention against Torture and has a history of caning asylum seekers.

Liberal Senator Eric Abetz sees that the restoration of the so-called Pacific Solution is the best solution for the government to do.
"If you have offended against the law of Nauru or Malaysia, where would you prefer to be? It's quite clear the Howard government's Nauruan solution, the Pacific solution, worked, and what's more, was more humane," Abetz said.

Speaking for his party, Greens MP Adam Bandt said sending asylum seekers to a country that has not agreed to abide by international law is “something they cannot support.”

Senator Nick Xenophon expressed that he cannot understand “why the Government will not send asylum seekers to Nauru because it has not signed the UN Refugee Convention, but will send them to Malaysia which is not a signatory either.”

Bowen assured both the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Organization for Migration will oversee and monitor the program.

UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay said she was critical of assurances given by Bowen that Malaysia would give a written undertaking on the human rights of 800 boat arrivals sent there. Pillay explained such written deals are no protection if the recipient country had not approved the torture and refugee conventions.