Australia’s immigration minister has rejected a damning report by Amnesty International that says Canberra paid human traffickers to turn back refugee boats.

The international right group said in a Wednesday report that it had “documented an alarming pattern of abusive and illegal pushback by the Australian authorities.”

Australian officials reportedly paid over USD 32,000 to smugglers to take a boatload of asylum seekers back to Indonesia in May and made a second payment in July to another boat to leave Australia’s waters.

Australian Immigration Minister Peter Dutton fired back, branding the report a “disgrace” and saying the Australian government would not “be bullied” to water down its harsh asylum policies.

“People on intercepted vessels are held lawfully in secure, safe, humane, and appropriate conditions by the personnel of the Australian Border Force (ABF) and the Australian Defense Force (ADF),” he claimed.

“To suggest otherwise, as Amnesty has done, is to cast a slur on the men and women of the ABF and ADF,” Dutton added.

Under the so-called Operation Sovereign Borders, Australia’s Conservative government sends the asylum seekers trying to reach its mainland via boats to a third country or detention camps in Papua New Guinea or Nauru.

‘By hook or by crook’

The policy has received massive criticism and condemnation from international human rights organizations.

The Amnesty report, titled “By hook or by crook,” was based on witness testimonies as well as images and video footage taken by the asylum seekers and Indonesian police.

The rights group described the cases as clear evidence of “transnational crime,” saying Australian officials’ intervention endangered the lives of the refugees.

“Such turnbacks violate the principle of non-refoulement, which says refugees cannot be sent back to countries where they are at risk, and also deny people the right to have their asylum claims assessed,” Amnesty said.

In an alleged July turnback incident, Australian officials reportedly took passengers and smugglers to an Australian boat for several days, before transferring them to another vessel and telling them to move toward an Indonesian island.

The boat reportedly did not make it to the island as it ran out of fuel before Indonesian officials finally picked them up.