An asylum seeker accused of rioting in the Christmas Island detention centre on November 21 recently contacted a refugee advocate about living conditions inside. The refugee advocate asked Green Left Weekly to withhold both their names.

At the trial of the accused rioters on January 20, the magistrate did not issue orders to move them. Yet the accused were moved to “red compound”. The asylum seeker said they felt violated by surveillance cameras in the toilets, and complained about this. They have since been moved to the centre’s “alpha compound”. There are no surveillance cameras in the toilets at the alpha compound, but it is more crowded. The asylum seeker said he was in a 12-by-10 foot room with two others. It was too small to fit a table or cupboard, or to display religious items.

He said they were not allowed out to the oval, church or the pool. They were surrounded by an electric fence. They had access to mobile phones in red compound, but they are banned in alpha compound. There are two computers for 100 people. He wrote: “We can’t inform this message [to] anybody, so I inform you: what can we do?” He was distraught about the fate of his family, fearful of his fate in detention, and desperate to continue tertiary studies.

He was very appreciative of what practical help the refugee advocate could provide, which was to send him books on learning English. That there was a need to send books suggests little had changed since a 2003 report characterised the detention centre’s library services to asylum seekers as “leftovers and scraps”. The living conditions sounded like a Siberian prison camp under Stalin.

Serco, the company that runs the privatised detention centre, refused to speak to GLW. However, a Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) spokesperson answered some questions by email. DIAC advised that if refugees are unhappy with their living conditions they can “raise such issues with the detention services provider”. The refugee advocate told GLW that the ombudsman plans to visit the island. It is not clear if the ombudsman will have access to complaints.

There is a higher security area known as “red compound”. Surveillance of toilet areas is used only if inmates pose a very high risk to themselves or others. Alpha compound is an “ordinary holding area”, DIAC told GLW.

Asylum seekers are given 50 credit points (worth about $1) per week with which they can purchase items such as cigarettes or phone cards to use with fixed phones.

According to DIAC, many of the books available were “sourced from the Christmas Island local school, while some books, magazines and newspapers have been donated by people living on the island”. However, a “large order” of Tamil books that includes novels, cricket books and magazines had just been delivered.

Given the serious gap between the asylum seeker’s evidence and DIAC’s description, it is of grave concern that ordinary Australians cannot freely contact staff or residents at the centre.

Serco Australia has pledged to “meet the highest standards of performance and accountability”. But has it?

http://www.greenleft.org.au/2010/828/42607

This morning, dozens of children - under the watchful eye of the Australian Government - were escorted to school by guards. This evening the children will return to a fenced facility on a remote island and do their homework in demountable buildings, while they ponder their plight. Sound like fiction?

Sadly, there are families and children on Christmas Island who experience this heartbreak daily.

When I visited the new Christmas Island Detention Centre last year I was horrified to see the prison-like conditions that people applying for asylum in Australia must live in. We were told that children would not be detained in the new detention centre. What we have discovered is that the alternative detention arrangements for the 68 children, including 41 unaccompanied minors held on the island are little better, and in many respects worse.

Please stand with us and call on the Government to end this shameful treatment and remove all detained children from Christmas Island

The “alternative” detention arrangements are inappropriate for even the briefest period. A fenced-in facility which currently holds the 68 children consists mostly of metal, concrete and gravel, tiny demountable buildings, with small claustrophobic bedrooms. The children are under guard and not free to leave the fenced perimeter of the facilities. This is unacceptable — if children were detained under these conditions on the mainland there would be outrage in the Australian community.

No child seeking asylum should be detained on Christmas Island. Please take action now

While the Federal Government committed to no longer keeping children in detention centres – instead they are exiled to an environment where the conditions and the lack of services have similar detrimental psychological impacts. This is a betrayal of the Government’s commitment to a more humane immigration policy — and for the sake of 68 young children we must call for this to end.

Thank you for standing up for a more humane refugee system.

Yours sincerely,

]]> http://refugeebuddies.com/children-in-detention/feed/ http://refugeebuddies.com/abolition-of-detention-debts/ http://refugeebuddies.com/abolition-of-detention-debts/#comments Mon, 22 Jun 2009 21:17:00 +0000 buddies http://refugeebuddies.com/?p=313

]]> http://refugeebuddies.com/abolition-of-detention-debts/feed/ http://refugeebuddies.com/is-mandatory-detention-in-line-with-australian-policy/ http://refugeebuddies.com/is-mandatory-detention-in-line-with-australian-policy/#comments Sat, 19 Apr 2008 07:07:27 +0000 admin http://refugeebuddies.com/?p=135 In 1999, ninety-seven percent of applicants from Iraq and 93 percent of applicants from Afghanistan were recognized as genuine refugees by Australia.

Australia is a signatory to the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child, which states: “No child shall be deprived of their liberty unlawfully or arbitrarily.”

No country, other than Australia, detains unaccompanied children indefinitely.

Australia is now the only country in the Western world to lock up asylum seekers automatically, indefinitely and with limited judicial review.

Australia is a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which prohibits arbitrary detention.

Australia is a signatory to the UN Convention Relation to the Status of Refugees, respecting a person’s right to seek asylum.

Australia is one of only eight countries in the world which set quotas for refugees. The other 63 countries which accept displaced people don’t set limits.

Australia came 38th of 71 countries, on a per capita basis, for its acceptance of refugees in the calendar year 2000 (figures supplied by UN High Commission for Refugees.) Among the 29 developed nations in this group, Australia came 14th.

Australia is one of just four countries in the developed world—the others being Greece, Turkey and Poland—that put asylum seekers in detention camps.

Australia receives 8 million visitors, about 105 migrants (as of next year) and 4000 asylum seekers a year.

Sweden receives similar numbers of asylum seekers to Australia despite having less than half the population. Detention is used only to establish identity and to conduct criminal screening. Most detainees are released within a very short time, particularly if they have relatives or friends living in Sweden. Of the 17,000 asylum seekers currently in Sweden, 10,000 live outside detention centres. Children are detained for a maximum of six days.

(source: David Leser’s article Behind the Wire, in the July, 2002 issue of Women’s Weekly)