BY SARAH STEPHEN
Security at Sydney's Villawood immigration detention centre will be tightened in response to recommendations made in a report by Knowledge Enterprises' Keith Hamburger, former director of Queensland's prisons department. Immigration minister Philip Ruddock commissioned the report following escapes during July from the detention centre by two groups of detainees.
Curfews were suggested so that detainees cannot move around without supervision. There will no longer be any areas considered out of bounds for cultural reasons, such as prayer gatherings. The report also suggested stronger fencing, improved perimeter lighting and mapping the drainage system. The issues identified will be applied to other detention centres.
One group of detainees escaped from Villawood through drains after tunnelling under the floor of an unsupervised mosque, while the second group cut through the fence with a hacksaw believed to have belonged to a tradesperson.
New legislation came into effect on July 27 increasing the penalty for escaping detention from two to five years' imprisonment. A press release issued by Ruddock on July 31 said "This new legislation sends a clear signal that the government regards escaping from detention as a serious criminal offence".
Six days after his escape, Jinlong Huang turned himself in to police on July 28. He had been in Villawood detention centre since May. It is unclear why he turned himself in.
Huang appeared at the Sydney Central Local Court on July 30. Police opposed his bail on the grounds of "the protection and welfare of the community", the prosecutor told the court. Huang's case was adjourned until August 22, but it is likely that he will soon be deported.
The wife and four children of an Algerian man, the only one of 46 Villawood escapees with family in detention, have been deported back to Algeria after being held for nearly three years at the centre. They were put on a plane on July 29 without any opportunity to collect personal belongings.
The man, if deported, faces persecution in Algeria. He would be subject to punishment for evading that country's military draft, and the family are Berbers, an oppressed minority in Algeria. The woman, a hairdresser, could face further persecution if she tried to work in Algeria because fundamentalist Islamic groups consider her profession immoral.
The family had flown into Sydney in September 1998 with their three children to seek asylum, but were sent immediately to the detention centre and had their claim rejected.
In another development, Federal Court Justice Murray Wilcox began hearing allegations on July 27 by eight Chinese asylum seekers held at Villawood that they were bashed by Australasian Correctional Management guards — allegedly wearing masks, riot clothes and carrying batons — on April 27 and then denied proper medical attention. The eight men are suing ACM and Ruddock for breaching a duty of care owed to them.
Two of the eight men had been deported before the hearing began, and another returned at his own request.
Justice Wilcox described as "outrageous" police claims that they could not identify the alleged perpetrators because they were wearing masks.
On August 1, the court viewed a 20-minute video made by ACM which showed the initial moments of the alleged attack and later showed the detainees with black eyes, bruises and scratches on their bodies.
Meanwhile, three Iranian asylum seekers who escaped from Woomera detention centre on June 9 were each sentenced to eight months jail in Perth on August 2. They tunnelled under two fences and had walked to a railway line, hoping to eventually get to a large eastern seaboard city. They had misjudged the direction of a freight train, however, and travelled to Perth, where they were found begging on June 18.
Legal aid counsel Rod Keeley said the men had told him they preferred the conditions in jail to those in the Woomera detention centre.
Paul Benedek from Free the Refugees Campaign in Sydney, told Green Left Weekly: "These people should deserve medals for bravery and ingenuity rather than jail terms. Detention of asylum seekers is unjust, and we should support all those who manage to escape."