Sri Lankan asylum seekers deported from Australia have been beaten and killed, a refugee support organisation says.
Their investigation found nine people died after being sent back under the Howard Government and others returned in the last year have been assaulted and imprisoned.
Australia has suspended its processing of Sri Lankan asylum seekers pointing to improved conditions in the country.
"Some of them are taken to prison, some of them have been assaulted. We know man has lost his hearing one man has had sight damage," Phil Glendenning from the Edmund Rice Centre told SBS.
"Some of them remain in prison where they are not represented. And we think that returning people to this situation is seriously exposing them to danger and therefore in breach of Australia's international obligations," he said.
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Some in the Tamil community in Australia say the Sri Lankan government poses a threat to current deportees, even those not detained.
Bala Vigneswaran is a community leader.
"They are under the government's watchful eye so the government doesn't have to do anything straight away. They will wait. They will do things a bit later," he told SBS.
This is what the Sri Lankan High Commissioner said of the new allegations: "This is a total lie and completely unsubstantiated... No complaints have been brought to the attention of the Government of Sri Lanka.
"It is quite obvious that the real people behind this news item are the so-called refugee advocates who appear to be actively engaged in arranging people smuggling operations".
But Phil Glendenning insists Australia must change its policy.
"In the period of the Howard Government nine people died who came to Australia to seek asylum and were returned."
"We cannot go back to repeating that to a situation where the lives of vulnerable people - asylum seekers from Sri Lanka for example - can become some kind of auction item in an Australian election," Mr Glendenning told SBS.
With asylum claims from Afghans and Sri Lankans suspended, the government is looking for new ways to house the growing number of people here.
Several Church groups have said they have been contacted by to see if they are willing to take people in.
