From UNHCR Refugees Daily,
courtesy Alistair Gee: SYDNEY, Australia, May 25

One Nation plans fresh
anti-immigration campaign

The right-wing One Nation party will beef up its anti-Asian immigration policies as the centrepiece of its platform in national elections later this year. One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has asked Robyn Spencer, who has links to extreme right-wing groups, to revamp the party's immigration policies before the election, expected in November or December, The Sydney Morning Herald reported Saturday.

The policy will stress opposition to the growing number of boat people flocking to Australia as refugees, policies promoting multiculturalism and what One Nation claims is favoured treatment of Asians. One Nation has registered a surge in its support this year and is given a good chance of winning several federal Senate seats, where it currently has just one lawmaker. Spencer, who has ties to such extremist groups as the anti-Semitic League of Rights, said Asian immigration will be a major issue in the election. ``We are not talking about individual Asians being a problem,'' she was quoted as saying by the Herald. ``What we are against is government policies that bring all sorts of people into Australia and how that has an enormous impact on our country,'' she said. (AP)

SYDNEY MORNING HERALD -- Date: 04/05/2001
Psychiatrists condemn
detention centre 'abuse'

A report in the British medical journal The Lancet has accused Australia of abusing asylum seekers by jailing them in remote detention centres such as Woomera while their applications are heard.

The report said Australia had spent much time and money on re-creating a climate of fear and persecution in its detention centres that could leave asylum seekers, many of whom had already been tortured and abused in their home countries, permanently psychologically scarred.

But the Immigration Minister, Mr Ruddock, said most of the problems related to people who were not refugees and had paid to be brought to Australia.

The doctors responsible for the article had made statements based on misconceptions and did not appear to have spent time in the centres, a spokesman said.

The Sydney psychiatrists Dr Derrick Silove, Dr Zachary Steel and Dr Richard Mollica wrote in the article: "The asylum detention centre, deliberately hidden from the public gaze, threatens to leave an indelible mark on our legacy, a stain that history will have difficulty erasing.

"Centres in Australia, such as the newly established facility in Woomera, are situated in isolated areas surrounded by barbed-wire fences, with vast distances limiting access by social, health, and legal services."

The report said psychological distress among inmates was reflected in suicide attempts, acts of mass violence, group breakouts, rioting, the burning of facilities and sporadic hunger strikes, most of which have occurred at the detention centres.

But the Government's answer was to threaten to bring in strip searches and sedative injections to quell unrest among detainees, it said.

A study of Tamil asylum seekers in Australia found that those in detention had much higher levels of panic, depression, post-traumatic stress symptoms and suicidal urges than those living in the community, they said.

Mr Ruddock's spokesman said: "We are not aware of the three [psychiatrists] spending much, if any, time in the detention centres and some of the observations would appear to be based on misconceptions."

Expose About The Plight Of Detainees At The Perth Detention Centre
(written by Stephen Khan, currently detained in Perth Immigration Detention Centre, detained for two years and eight months)

We would like to draw your kind attention to the life of detainees in a detention centre. Detainees abscond their countries because of political instability, bloody and vindictive wars, fear from persecution, the worst Human Rights violations and torture and death. When people enter Australia and ask for asylum, they think they are safe but the treatment from the Immigration Department is inhuman and unacceptable for their uncertain future. We are branded as Boat people, queue jumpers and illegal Migrants so we feel guilty and ashamed but it’s a reality that we have to do this to save our lives (for example if any Australian fear persecution from Australian government, will Australian Immigration let him leave the legal way?).

If we expose the truth, we are branded as media savvy. The Immigration Department detained refugees like criminals under the Migration Act and took years to finalise their cases. Being detained without any crime is a very terrible hardship, because if you did any crime and were sentenced to prison, you will know the release date and because you have done something wrong you won’t get depressed, but while you are in detention you don’t know when you are going to be released and what will happen to you. It is a tremendous frustration. We are dying every day. Ten detainees kept in one dorm and widespread sadness and depression! I have seen many detainees becoming psychiatric patients because of long term detention under constant surveillance. The condition of detention is not sanitary and hygienic and detrimental to our health. We are confined in quite awful conditions.

Once you arrive in detention it’s the beginning of fear and uncertainty. Detainees live under continual strain and fear and as a result detainees are not always nice to each other and to the staff in the detention centre. A few detention officers’ behaviour distressed and exasperated us. We had many sleepless nights, the condition in this center amounted to mental torture, this is an insult to human dignity, life slows down in detention and the days seem endless. The weeks turn into months and the months into years. Our feelings are pretty desperate and hugely frustrated, inability to concentrate, making reading, writing and concentration difficult. Thinking and activity are slowed down because the mind is absorbed by inner anguish. We found it so agonising in detention that I do not have the words to express, we felt helpless and lacking dignity.

We think the Immigration authorities were clearly attempting to humiliate us, and attempting to crush our spirits. We think Immigration deliberately put us in the condition of physical and psychological hardship for so long to teach us a lesson and deter others, and that would certainly breach the spirit of the United Nations Convention. Freedom is very important but how those bureaucrats that sit in their offices can feel? For them we are not human beings, just numbers. Sometimes we pretend that we are not. Sometimes we have a sense that no help will come, we feel like we are in a grave with four walls. Australia’s proud of its humanitarian reputation, so why not keep a human face, why does the Department of Immigration keep us in detention for years (it is a cruel crime against humanity) like criminals although we haven’t committed any crime? If asking for asylum to save our lives is a crime then every human being is a criminal because no one wants to die.

Detainees think they suffered a lot, now their lives are so awful that they want to get out completely. Self-harm and suicide attempts are common practices. Attempts to commit suicide are viewed as a way out of a hostile environment with the belief that life is worthless, particularly in this detention. Hon. Philip Ruddock MP says: "detainees were attempting suicide to draw attention" but obviously we felt "we have given up, we have lost hope." On another occasion he says: "Asylum seekers appeal to the Federal Court to stop their removal from Austalia." In a few cases we didn’t appeal to the court but Immigration was still unable to make a final decision that gives them liberty or sends them back to die.

We understand that the Minister only finds excuses manipulating the Australian public against the refugees. The minister says that because of illegal immigrants we are reducing the quota for legal refugees. This is just a stunt playing illegal against legal refugees. This detention is very small and too much surveillance and no privacy (Human rights recommended that Immigration should not keep any detainee longer than three months, but a few detainees have been kept here for two to three years). Detainees always feel fear, sadness, anger, hopelessness, despair and memories hurt them because of the things that happened to them in the past.

A few detainees have been taken to prison because Immigration think they are disturbing other detainees and breaching human rights, but Immigration didn’t think why they are motivated to do the unexpected things. Immigration creates the circumstances, making detainees lose their temper, which makes them upset, then Immigration blames them. Being detained is very stressful, embarrassing and self-destructive. Isn’t Immigration breaching the Human Rights? Does anybody ask Immigration why detainees are detained for so long? When you are detained so long, it’s very simple, you will lose your temper and get angry over trivial things, it’s human nature, even the animals also have very sensitive feelings when they are confined.

Some of the asylum seekers who have been detained for two to three years are reasonably skilled, hardworking and adequately conversant in the English language, they would assimilate easily into your society without any problems. They are also young and able-bodied which means that they would not be a burden on your social security system. Immigration Department did not think that way, instead of that the department is spending $191.00 per day on each detainee ( actually the private American firm, ACM Australasian Correctional Managemant, the company who runs the centers takes advantage of this money) which means for someone who stayed two years in detention it costs almost $149,430.00 to the Immigration budget, and all that money comes from tax payers.

As far as the welfare of detainees [is]concerned they are given jobs in the centre every second week, only two points a day, one point is almost equal to one dollar, which is not sufficient to cope with their daily expenses, for example if any detainee wants to converse with his parents or friends, he is not able to buy enough phone cards. The other detention centers provide jobs at least five points a day, which is satisfactory.

Even if you compare with prisoner they are given $44 a week as gratuity, which they can use to make phone calls and fulfill their daily expenses. In other words we are treated worse than criminals. A few detainees are wearing one set of clothes for more than a year because ACM provides only emergency clothing if you have nothing to wear. We are forced to buy some of our basic essentials and our own clothing or have friends to buy them for us. Nobody can enjoy confinement in cramped detention centres, walls topped with razor wire. I do not understand how the Minister said previously that Australians do not have the luxuries as the detainees have in detention. What a joke! Immigration Department has to think seriously about it.

A few detainees asked Immigration that if they don’t want to give us visas then remove us from Australia. We are better off to die in our countries, rather than stay here and die every day. We are human beings, we have feelings, flesh and blood running in our veins. It is clear that all detainees' cases should be dealt with as quickly as possible, and those who are not qualified for the Immigration assessment should be sent back to their countries without delay.

We want to oppose the mandatory detention for asylum seekers. Mandatory detention is a harsh law, which, in our views, is immoral, unjust and intolerable. Our conscience dictates that we must protest against it, that we must oppose it and that we must attempt to alter it! The authorities concerned enforced every regulation with threats and intimidation. As per Marion Le, President of Independent Council for Refugees Advocacy, asylum seekers should be given bridging visas like in many other countries until the process is finalised.

In detention centers there are self-harm, damage to property, fights and assaults caused by chronic deficiencies in the management of detainees. Detainees are demonstrating and causing disruption because they want to draw attention to their predicament. Hon. Ruddock is getting tougher and tougher towards the boat people, he made many strict amendments in the legislation, for example, Temporary Protection Visas. The proposed legislation bill [is] merely a symptom of a panicky and mishandled approach towards the refugees, such wars were placing untold stress on refugees. He also gives them mental and physical hardship, by locking them in detention for a long time to deter others.

Detention centers were built to keep Refugees and non-citizens for a short time just like care centers, but it’s been converted into prisons. Detention officers were employed to look after or be caretakers,it’s changed into prison guards. We have a muster twice a day, [in]which every detainee has to go to the exercise yard, whether he is sick or sixty years old. A few officers force detainees to go out in the yard, like [a ]shepherd driving away sheep. This is a form of torture and showing off who is in command and to remind us we are prisoners. It is very humiliating for us too. In the other centers there is [a]head count, even though centers hold five hundred or more detainees. In this center only for twenty eight they do muster unnecessarily.

So please, please, please……help us!!!

Stephen Khan Perth Immigration Detention Center
PO Box 286 Belmont WA 6984.

(This document was provided by the Refugee Rights Action Network in Perth, and is published with the permission of the author. A few minor typographical errors have been corrected.)

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