Private-detention centre operator Serco and the department of immigration have taken steadily more aggressive action to prevent refugees in detention from speaking out about their conditions. They have done this by moving to restrict and curtail visits to detainees, and have banned several individuals.
In Darwin’s Airport Lodge detention centre, Serco guards recently began watching over visits from members of the Darwin Asylum Seeker Support and Advocacy Network. DASSAN spokesperson Fernanda Dahlstrom said on May 23 that the “move was about preventing the Australian people from knowing about the reality of life for people in immigration detention”.
A letter passed to a community visitor in April, written by a 10-year-old Vietnamese refugee, said life in detention was “very sad, depressing and hopeless”. In another note thrown to supporters during Darwin’s Easter refugee rights protests, the 10-year-old author said they had self-harmed by cutting their hand on three occasions.
The notes received national and international media coverage and prompted renewed calls for children to be released from detention.
But, Dahlstrom said: “Serco does not want any more letters from asylum seekers coming out of detention and is using security guards to make sure this does not happen.”
In Sydney, several refugee supporters and opponents of mandatory detention have been banned from visiting refugees in the residential housing compound of the Villawood detention centre, where six children are held with their parents.
This includes Tamil mother Ranjini, who was taken from Melbourne with her three sons after ASIO decided she was a security threat.
Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon arranged on May 15 to meet with Tamils who had been assessed as “threats” by ASIO and faced indefinite detention. The visit coincided with “Remembrance Day”, which marked three years since the end of Sri Lanka’s war on the Tamil people.
Rhiannon planned to hold a press conference outside the centre to describe her meetings with the Tamils. But Serco guards reportedly cut short the visits. Sydney’s Refugee Action Coalition (RAC) said immigration staff used “phoney” doctors’ appointments to remove Rhiannon from the centre.
A petition released by RAC said it was “a blatant effort to exclude people who are known critics of detention conditions”.
Refugee Action Coalition member Ian Rintoul was also banned. He said on May 18 the director of detention operations, Steve Karras, used the pretext of a protest outside the detention centre as “reason enough” to indefinitely bar his visits.
“The fact that there was no protest does not bother Karras,” Rintoul said. “His decision is law in the detention centre.”
Serco and immigration officials can control visiting arrangements arbitrarily and with little avenue to challenge the decisions. They routinely cite undisclosed “operational reasons” to cancel visiting hours.
After Ranjini’s arrival at the detention centre’s residential compound was widely publicised, centre management has further toughened visiting arrangements.
Some of the changes include requiring a visitor application form to be faxed to Serco 24 hours before the visit time. This is an onerous and limiting practice, but also gives Serco and immigration time to check the visitor’s background.
In Darwin, where 24-hours’ notice is already standard practice, the immigration department’s regional director cancelled all interstate visitors who travelled to Darwin to protest the city’s detention centres.
Refugee supporters, church groups, family and friends frequently visit Villawood detention centre in big numbers. Some groups make a conscious effort to find out about newly arrived refugees and those who do not get regular visits. They try to create supportive networks and get a clearer picture of detention conditions.
Serco has tried to carry out cumbersome restrictions in the past, but they have been broadly opposed for the punishing impact they have on refugees.
RAC said visiting has also been changed “to allow a visitor to only speak to the person named on their visiting form, creating an intolerable and impractical situation that prevents people socially interacting or even having conversations with people they know”.
A letter written by detainees in the compound to immigration minister Chris Bowen called Serco’s new rules “humiliating and distressing”.
The May 20 letter said: “Many of us are suffering depression due to this uncertain future and deprivation of our liberty, even though we have not been accused of any crime. We regularly have visitors who cheer us up and make us feel we are human beings who matter.
“Whilst we are in long term detention for no specified reason and with no right of appeal, we ask that you [Bowen] make our stay as less stressful as possible.”
Lawyers representing a refugee who has been in detention for more than three years are challenging, in the High Court, the indefinite detention of refugees.
The case will address ASIO’s right to keep the information and reasons for its security assessments secret and could affect the situation of more than 50 refugees negatively assessed by the agency.
