Australia: Refugees poison themselves
A protest in an Australian refugee detention centre escalated today with asylum seekers poisoning themselves and a hunger strike spreading to a second internment facility.
Meanwhile, a key government immigration adviser resigned and opponents of the government’s handling of refugees called for UN intervention.
At least seven refugees at the Woomera detention centre were hospitalised overnight after drinking detergent. Their condition was described as satisfactory by local health authorities.
More than 200 people at the centre have been on hunger strike for eight days and dozens have sewn their lips together.
After weathering a storm of international criticism last year for its policy of turning away illegal immigrants trying to sneak into Australia, Canberra is under renewed pressure to show more compassion to the thousands of refugees forced to wait up to three years in Spartan detention centres while their asylum applications are considered.
All refugees - including children - seeking asylum in Australia are locked up in the centres until their applications are processed.
A group recently set up to fight for refugee rights pleaded with the government to shut the camps, where more than 3,000 people are languishing.
‘‘It’s time Australians woke up - these places are not the benign migrant hostels of the 1950s. They are concentration camps, where people are stripped not only of their freedom but their dignity,’’ said Anne Coombs of Rural Australians for Refugees.
‘‘The distressing events at Woomera are proof of the failure of the present system. What we are witnessing are people at the end of their tether, driven to desperate action by the appalling circumstances of their indefinite incarceration.’’
Immigration minister Philip Ruddock was meeting officials in South Australia state today to discuss the plight of children at Woomera.
State human services minister Dean Brown said the government feared protesters at Woomera were putting children at risk - in at least four cases, children have had their lips sewn together.
‘‘That is absolutely unacceptable behaviour, that’s mutilation of the child,’’ Mr Brown said. ‘‘The clear advice is that these children cannot be left in a situation where they are put at risk by their own parents or other adults.’’
Of 202 people at the centre participating in hunger strikes, 35 are children.
Today, refugee advocates said the hunger strike had spread from Woomera, a former missile testing base in the desert of southern Australia, to Maribyrnong, a detention centre in the southern city of Melbourne.
At least 35 detainees there have now begun a hunger strike, Refugee Action Collective spokeswoman Judy McVey said.
She said the detainees felt they were being treated ‘‘worse than animals’’ and had been left with no choice but to protest.
Also today, a senior adviser to Mr Ruddock announced he had resigned in protest at the government’s refugee policies.
Neville Roach said he had stepped down ‘‘in sadness’’ as chairman of the Council for Multicultural Australia and claimed the government was too inflexible on the issue of asylum seekers.
Mr Ruddock has suggested that if the refugees - most of whom say they are fleeing persecution and instability in places like Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran - do not like the regime in Australia they should return home.
The Australian Democrats, an opposition party that holds the balance of power in the Senate, called today for the UN to take over supervision of the Woomera centre.
Sandra Kanck said the federal government was incapable of managing the orderly processing of refugees.
‘‘Calling in the United Nations will ensure the orderly and fair processing of asylum seekers,’’ she said.
