Two years ago, refugee advocates learned five men detained in Darwin's Northern Immigration Detention Centre (NIDC) had sewn their mouths together and were protesting against delays to their cases. Advocates alerted the media of the self-harm in July, 2011.
But immigration spokespeople contacted by media denied lip-stitching had taken place. A spokesperson told AAP on July 2, 2011, that a detainee had been taken to hospital after an incident of self-harm, but: “Nobody has sewn their lips together.”
Head of immigration department media communications, Sandi Logan, was more vague, saying the privacy of detained refugees was the reason he would not confirm whether lip-stitching had taken place in Australian detention centres, telling Crikey “We don't go into detail in regard to self harm or any other matter.”
Now, documents obtained under freedom of information show immigration staff were being updated about the condition of the refugees. In-confidence emails between NIDC operators and the department said that, on June 27, 2011, “clients have sewn their lips together and were protesting in their underwear”.
The protest continued for about 48 hours, during which time the men re-dressed, accepted food and fluids, but did not remove the stitches. Situation reports detailed their condition until June 29, when their stitches were removed by “on-site medical”.
NIDC is a maximum-security style detention centre that has been the site of roof-top protests, suicide attempts and extreme acts of self-harm, such as one detainee who tried to eat a light-bulb last year.
The two-day protest in 2011 is now the first confirmed case of lip-stitching protests in Australia since former prime minister John Howard was in power. Refugees in Nauru have also undertaken the practice this year and it is an act that often accompanies hunger strikes, suicide attempts and other forms of mental anguish.
It is a sign that conditions in detention are severe and detrimental enough that refugees would take such dramatic action.
With this in mind it is no surprise that immigration tried to downplay the scale of detainees' desperation when they sewed their lips and refused medical treatment.
However, a concerted and public campaign by refugee advocates in Darwin, who visit and investigate conditions inside the city's three detention centres, is forcing many shocking facts about life in detention into the open.
The emails were obtained through a freedom of information request made by the Darwin Asylum Seeker Support and Advocacy Network. Another bundle of documents released showed an epidemic of child self-harm in the Darwin Airport Lodge, where children are held with families and unaccompanied.
Doctors from Darwin's Royal Hospital have now released a study that says about half of refugees held in detention in the city had been admitted to the hospital's emergency department in 2011.
Dr Josh Davies from the Menzies School of Health and Research told a Darwin public meeting that 518 people from refugee detention were admitted at least once that year.
The ABC said on April 16 that cases “ranged from fairly mild episodes such as minor cuts or burns through to much more life-threatening situation such as attempted hanging, medication overdose and major lacerations.”
A quarter were admitted for mental illness. But the other 75% “had conditions that may well have been psychological problems,” Davies told the ABC.
The study said 140 adults and 15 children were treated for self-inflicted injuries.
He said this was “far in excess of the level of self-harm present in the general population” and the statistics “add to the existing weight of evidence that immigration detention is associated with poor health outcomes and high instances of psychiatric morbidity.”
The Australian Medical Association said the trend of asylum seekers being admitted to hospital was continuing into last year, and putting pressure on Darwin's health services. But doctors said they were receiving fewer refugee patients more recently.
DASSAN spokesperson Carl O'Connor told ABC: “The only reason it's happening less [in Darwin] is because they’re spending less time in detention. So if the government puts people in detention longer, or sends them offshore to Nauru or Manus [Island], they're going to be self-harming.”
The ABC reported the immigration department said mental health problems may be “pre-existing” for asylum seekers, downplaying the role of indefinite detention.
But the unearthed NIDC correspondence shows immigration knew one thing and told the media and the public another.
Logan was still trying to spin the story out last week, when Crikey put it to him that he denied that lip-sewing had occurred in 2011.
He said journalists spoke to him after the men's stitches had been removed. So: “In response to the specific question about ‘is there any lip sewing’, the answer was given ‘no, there are no incidents of lip sewing’, and we were talking specifically about incidents ... occurred some days after the previous action by five clients.”
The obvious spin and conscious omission of facts is part of the secrecy immigration and its private detention operators employ to cover-up the reality of conditions for refugees in Australia.
Privacy and protection is important, but mandatory detention is a government policy that locks up vulnerable, traumatised and innocent people with virtually no scrutiny. It is a case of refusing to submit to any public accountability over the lives of human beings.