BY SARAH STEPHEN
More than 200 Afghan asylum seekers held at the Woomera detention centre began a hunger strike, possibly as early as January 14. Reported by the mainstream press for the first time on January 19, as many as 70 of the hunger strikers have sewn their lips together in a desperate protest against the lack of information about, and lengthy delays in processing, their claims for refugee status.
Human rights lawyers were given access to the centre on January 19, but were not allowed to speak to the protesters. Julie Redmond from the South Australian Law Society told the Sun Herald: "They are so desperate at being in the worst detention centre in Australia." She said conditions at Woomera, which is surrounded by desert, had worsened in recent months, raising tensions within the centre. "The heat can get to 40oC and many of these people have been there for 18 months", she said. In mid-December, riots broke out, causing substantial damage to buildings.
Speaking through an interpreter on January 20, one detainee told ABC news: "We are being kept in a place in the middle of nowhere where there has been nuclear testing done before and not even the slightest human rights are being observed... we are crying out and nobody is listening."
Immigration minister Philip Ruddock's response, according to the January 20 Sun Herald, was to argue that, "Lip sewing is a practice unknown in our culture". He went on to say: "It's something which offends the sensitivities of Australians. The protesters believe it might influence the way we might respond. It can't and it won't."
Sam King, involved in the Refugee Action Collective (RAC) in Adelaide, blasted Ruddock's racist and dismissive response to the protest. Ruddock "wants to convince us that 'they', Afghan asylum seekers, are alien to 'us', Australian people", King told Green Left Weekly. "But if Australians were held in a desert prison in a country they thought would treat them compassionately, and left for months without any information about their situation, they would get just as angry and desperate. It's a human response to an inhumane situation."
King said that detainees at Woomera have told RAC activists that there are suicide attempts almost daily. "We can't let this human tragedy go on any longer. There is an urgent need for the government to be called to account for its actions. I'm involved in campaigning for a royal commission to launch a full inquiry into the government's treatment of refugees, and it's gathering steam."
As the appalling treatment of asylum seekers continued to make news, and as the government digs its heels in more firmly with its current punitive policy, more people are calling for change.
There is growing support for a royal commission into all aspects of the Australian government's treatment of asylum seekers. Recent support has come from the Medical Association for the Prevention of War, which has voted to devote resources to the campaign. Support has also come from Rural Australians for Refugees, a network of groups organising in regional areas of Australia. Melbourne comedian Rod Quantock has also joined the call for a royal commission.
The United Nations Association of Australia (UNAA), one of the signatories to the call for a royal commission, has launched a people's commission of inquiry into the detention of asylum seekers. A media statement released on January 17 explained that the people's commission will encourage "detainees, former detainees and families, detention staff, official visitors, legal advisers and media to be involved in recording information which could be used to develop an alternative approach to mandatory detention of all asylum seekers".
Other signatories to the call for a royal commission include:
- Father Nguyen Van Cao, director of the Jesuit Refugee Service in Sydney; Rosemary Hudson Miller, acting director of the Social Responsibility and Justice unit of the Uniting Church; Ross Lamb, chaplain at Hamilton Secondary College, South Australia; Jean Brick, Buddhist Peace Fellowship, Sydney; Heather Formiani, Pax Christi convenor, Sydney; and Lorraine Phelan, NSW Ecumenical Council refugee program assistant.
- Anthony Burke, lecturer in international relations, Adelaide University; Ray Goodlass, acting and design lecturer, Charles Sturt University; and Jennifer Cramer, Centre for Aboriginal Studies, Curtin University, WA.
- Michael Thomson, NSW assistant state secretary (general staff) of the National Tertiary Education Union; Dr Bronwyn Winter, NSW assistant state secretary (academic) and president of the Sydney University branch, NTEU; and the Community and Public Sector Union (ACT branch).
- Chris Chaplin, immigration spokesperson for the Victorian Greens; Democratic Socialist Party; Resistance; Greens WA Legislative Council members Dee Margetts, Robin Chapple, Giz Watson and Christine Sharp; Thang Ngo, spokesperson for the Unity Party; and the Socialist Alliance.
- Barbara Rogalla, former nurse at the Woomera detention centre.
- Phillip Adams, columnist and ABC radio broadcaster; Humphrey McQueen, historian and author; and Wendy Bacon, journalist and associate professor at the school of independent journalism at the University of Technology, Sydney.
- Nicholas Poynder, a Sydney barrister; and Jaqueline Everitt, a Sydney lawyer involved in the Edmund Rice Centre who has been involved in exposing the conditions faced by children in detention.
- Keysar Trad, vice-president of the Lebanese Muslim Association; Rukshana Sarwar from the Afghan Women's Network; Salvatore Scevola, former chairperson of the NSW Ethnic Communities Council; and Beryl Mulder, president of the Northern Territory Multicultural Council.
- Max Lane, chairperson of Action in Solidarity with Asia and the Pacific (ASAP); Byron Friends of East Timor; Ian Rintoul from Sydney's Refugee Action Coalition; Peter Wilkie from Perth's Refugee Rights Action Network; Free the Refugees Campaign, Sydney; Shelley James, Fremantle Refugee Support Project; Sue Finucane, co-manager North and West Neighbourhood Centre, Melbourne; and Melba Marginson, chair of the Victorian Immigrant and Refugee Women's Coalition and member of the Victorian Multicultural Commission.
- Dr Lynette Dumble from the Global Sisterhood Network; the Sydney International Women's Day Collective; and Flora Fardell for the South Australian Women's Legal Service.
For more information about the UNAA's people's commission, email <margaret.reynolds@bigpond.com>. To find out more about the call for a royal commission into the treatment of asylum seekers, visit <http://www.refugee-royal-commission.org>.
From Green Left Weekly, January 23, 2002.
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