BY SARAH STEPHEN
PERTH — You'd be forgiven for not noticing the Perth Airport Immigration Detention Centre. Nestled back from the road at the entrance to the domestic terminal, it was built to house only a few dozen detainees.
On March 15 and 16, Ali Abu Al Chabab, a Palestinian refugee, spent 43 hours behind bars in this centre.
Chabab first applied for refugee status in 1998, when he came to Australia on a student visa. This was rejected by the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, DIMA, as was his appeal to the Refugee Review Tribunal. He appealed directly to the minister of immigration, Philip Ruddock, at the end of 1999.
Given the lengthy delay on news about his appeal, Chabab's partner contacted DIMA officials on March 14. He was shocked by their reply.
"The DIMA official advised her there was a problem with my case", Chabab told Green Left Weekly. "He said he didn't know whether there was a decision from the minister yet, but there was a major problem with my visa, which had expired. He said I had been living for nine months without a visa."
The official claimed to have tried to notify Chabab, visiting his home on three occasions. But, Chabab said with bewilderment, "no letters or calling cards had been left, and [there had been] no attempt to contact me by phone".
Chabab, his lawyer and an interpreter met with DIMA officials the following day. "I was interrogated by DIMA officials from 2pm until 9.30pm. They were very personal and asked specific questions, including challenging the validity of my relationship with Ana because she didn't wear a wedding ring. It was then that they told me the minister had refused my appeal in May, nearly 10 months ago."
"I was taken in a sealed van to the detention centre at Perth domestic airport", he recounted. "When I arrived, I was put into a small room with no windows for three hours before being moved to the main area with 21 other detainees."
Chabab said he was "pressured" on arrival to sign a paper indicating his willingness to be moved to another detention centre, if necessary. "I refused to sign it. If I had signed, I could have been taken immediately to Port Hedland or Woomera. I was charged $191 a day to stay in the detention centre."
Chabab spoke with many of the detainees while he was there. Some had been identified as "trouble-makers" and moved to the centre from others, including Woomera and Port Hedland. Some had been there for a few months, others for years.
"Their experiences behind bars in Australia were a heart-breaking picture of despair, treated as criminals without trial", Chabab said. Most suffer from deep mental and psychological depression and pessimism about their future.
His fellow detainees told him that there had been three suicide attempts in the previous year. One Palestinian man had tried twice, "once by hanging himself in the kitchen, but he was stopped before he could do it; another time taking 15 tablets. They had to pump his stomach". One man slit open his stomach with a razor.
"These are the actions of people who have lost all hope", he said, still deeply affected by the experience.
Eight people are housed in each of the detention centre's rooms, which have no windows; there are cameras everywhere. Recreation facilities are limited, and depression is pervasive.
The detainees are allowed outdoors, into a small courtyard during the day, but from there "We can only see a small square of sky [and] nothing else because of the high walls".
"We must clean the centre ourselves, and are paid $2 for up to three hours work a day", Chabab recalled, still chaffing at it. "We also accumulate two points for every day's work, and once we have 14 points we get a packet of cigarettes. We can buy phone cards to make calls to family and friends, but it is much more expensive than it would be outside. A $10 phone card would allow only a five minute call to Iraq."
A friend of Chabab's and a campaigner for refugee rights, Peter Wilkie, went to visit him on March 16.
"The security was quite a shock", he told Green Left Weekly. "You lob up to the prison, you state your name and who it is you are [there] to visit. If your name is on their list, you have to provide ... identification. Then you empty your pockets. The guard runs a metal detector over you and escorts you to the visiting room."
"The interview room is small and there are two cameras in opposite corners, so you can't turn your back on them both simultaneously. There are signs, in English, explaining various rules. Ali tells me that they are everywhere, rules for this, rules for that."
"The more he tells me about the other people in there, the more distressing it is", Wilkie said. "But he tells me that he is strong and he will not stop fighting for his human rights. I am pretty sure I would not bear up so well if I were in the same circumstances."
Chabab told Wilkie that he had sought to cheer up the inmates, telling them "There are people on the outside who care. There is hope, in six months the government might change, the new government might pursue a different policy".
"But they tell him 'You are new. Wait until you have been here three years, then you will feel like us'," Wilkie recounted, shaking his head.
"It is an oppressive place", Wilkie said with a shudder. "The guards are polite, but there is no hiding what is going on here. I realised that I had a stress headache from just being there and hearing about what it is like inside. I can't even imagine what it must be like to be locked up in these places for indefinite periods."
"People in immigration detention centres are not criminals," Wilkie said angrily. "Ali was without a valid visa and this is enough to get you incarcerated in Australia. They have been charged with no crime, nor appeared before an Australian court. They are not suspected of any crime. These people are mandatorily detained as an administrative measure."
Chabab's battle for release has been difficult. In the end, he applied for a bridging visa, which would allow his release from detention and give him a chance to make arrangements to leave the country legally. "My chances of being released to fight the decision made by the minister were very slim, and would have involved incredible legal fees — a lawyer costs $300 an hour to hire."
As a condition for receiving the visa, he had to buy a one-way ticket to Lebanon, but even after doing so, the department left him hanging.
"DIMA had 48 hours to make a decision on whether or not to release me", Chabab explained. "During that time, I wasn't sure what was going to happen to me. On Friday [March 16], a DIMA official contacted my lawyer and asked for my travel documents so they could arrange for my [deportation]. There was obviously miscommunication between sections of the department, and this person wasn't aware I'd put in an application for a bridging visa. It was clear that if I hadn't lodged that application on my first day, I could have been put on a plane back to Lebanon without any notice."
Chabab was released five hours before the usual 48-hour deadline was up. Since then, Chabab said he has "had to arrange my own 'legal' deportation from Australia, reporting to DIMA every two days at 10am until I have left the country. Ana and I will go to Lebanon and fight for my right to return as her legally recognised husband. This could take anywhere between two and 12 months."
Chabab is bitter about his treatment, saying that the long waits have been deliberate. "DIMA did not notify me for 10 months that my appeal to the minister for refugee status had been rejected, but they ensured that I received prompt confirmation — hand-delivered while I was in detention — that they had rejected any application for a visa on the basis of my marriage to Ana".
He is angry not just at the injustice that has been done to him and many others but also because he believes a solution is so easy. "These detention centres should immediately be closed. It would cost less to treat asylum seekers ... with human dignity and assess their applications for refugee status while they participate as equals in Australian society, with the right to work to support themselves. This is the most urgent demand we can raise at this time."