BY PAUL BENEDEK
"Riot police and detention centre security broke down the doors, gassed the hunger strikers, put them in steel handcuffs and threw them like animals into waiting trucks to be taken away."
Is this a scene from Nazi Germany in the 1930s? Or maybe the Indonesian military's treatment of East Timorese before independence?
No, it is 4am on July 27, and this is Maqsood Alsham's account of the treatment meted out to asylum seekers in the Villawood Immigration Detention Centre by police and the centre's operators, Australasian Corrections Management (ACM).
The asylum seekers had been on hunger strike since July 24, demanding better conditions inside the centre and a speed-up of their applications for refugee status. In the five days following, they were subjected to ever greater levels of intimidation.
"The refugees had been huddled in the recreation room. At 4am, when they were probably asleep, the attack began", said Alshams, an activist in the Refugee Action Collective (RAC), which formed to oppose the inhuman treatment of asylum seekers in Australia.
"Massive search lights lit up the entire detention centre, terrifying the detainees", added the Iranian Refugee Association's Cyrus Sarang.
In the following hours, RAC activists received many calls from the distressed relatives of asylum seekers, wanting to know where their family members were. The ABC later reported that about half the asylum seekers had been taken to Woomera detention centre, and half to Port Hedland detention centre.
Zeinab Al-Turkey, from the Worker Communist Party of Iraq, believes that the government was starting to witness growing protest, "both inside and outside the detention centre. Police had already tried to end the protest, but couldn't, so they forcibly moved to break it up."
Sarang agrees, noting the international focus that is starting to fall on Australia. "The Olympics are coming. The government wants to keep the refugees issue out of the eye of the international press. Already they are under pressure on Australia's human rights record regarding Aboriginal imprisonment. They don't want more embarrassments."
"The government are frightened both by the growing community outrage against their refugee laws, and the growing willingness of asylum seekers to take action", believes Sydney University's international solidarity officer Daniel Ooi.
"Shipping them out from Villawood to two separate detention centres is an attempt to break the protest, to break the solidarity forged amongst the asylum seekers", he said. "Moreover, moving them to remote areas keeps them out of the public eye, and makes it harder to build community solidarity and support for the asylum-seekers."
Treated like criminals
Al-Turkey, who came to Australia as a refugee four years ago, recalls a visit to the detention centre which reminded her of prison in Iraq. "Bedding, food, treatment by the staff are all inhumane", she said.
Sarang was held for five months in Villawood in 1990 and has visited many times since. "It is freezing cold, and detainees are refused blankets and heaters", he told Green Left Weekly. "Guards frequently 'buzz', and [detainees] must stand against the wall, while the guards search their bedding. They are not criminals — they didn't come for detention, they came for protection."
Alshams, a journalist from Bangladesh seeking political refuge, was imprisoned in Villawood for 16 months and was released in April. He compares it to a medium-security prison.
He explained that the camp has two parts. "Stage Two is low security, Stage One is medium security. Any political activity and you are put in Stage One."
During the hunger strike, conditions were deliberately worsened, he said. "Power, phone, visits were all cut-off. Babies were removed from their distraught parents."
Al-Turkey is incensed at the injustice meted out to the asylum seekers, many of whom are her countrymen and women.
"Iraqi refugees are always 'illegals' that are put in detention. But there is no legal way out of Iraq as a refugee", she noted. "They want real rights: refugee status, citizenship, permanent visas, not just the temporary visas like the government is pushing. The hunger strikers believe they have no choice — if they are sent back to Iraq, they face certain execution."
Alshams recalled that there is at least one refugee who has been held for four and a half years, and another for four years. He explained that the process of applying for refugee status is long and bureaucratic.
"Refugees can be refused by [the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs], they go to the [Refugee Review Tribunal] on appeal, and can then go to the Federal Court. However the Federal Court has no jurisdiction to overturn RRT decisions", he said.
"DIMA, the RRT, the courts — they are all controlled or influenced by the government", Sarang says angrily, "so decisions will go the way the government wants."
Ridiculous
He explained one ridiculous case: "Authorities here demanded a refugees papers be faxed from Afghanistan. They hardly have a computer in Afghanistan!"
All four are involved in the Refugee Action Collective and all four believe that a people's movement is needed to end the government's policy. Alshams notes that communities such as the Tamils and a Muslim refugee support group are coming on board.
"We should expose the lies of the minister, and get the truth to the people", he said.
"We need to continue demonstrations in support of the refugees", said Al-Turkey, "because no country has done what Australia has done. We need to make [the RAC's planned demonstration at Villawood on] August 26 a huge mobilisation."
"The removal of the hunger strikers from Villawood was a gross act, but also an indication of desperation and defensiveness", Ooi believes. "We have to make sure that the government can't get away with shipping out refugees who take political action. We need to show the government that they cannot hide this issue. The only way it will go away is if the government's racist laws do."