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Vol. 74/No. 48      December 20, 2010

 
Australia immigrants
protest incarceration
 
BY BOB AIKEN  
SYDNEY, Australia—In mid-November some 20 asylum-seekers being held at the Christmas Island immigration detention center stitched their lips together to protest delays in the processing of their cases. Their eight-day action was supported by a hunger strike of more than 200 fellow prisoners.

Protests also erupted at the Villawood detention center in Sydney November 17 following the suicide there of an Iraqi asylum seeker, Ahmed Al Akabi. Five detainees—three Iranians, an Iraqi, and a Kurd—staged a rooftop protest over the suicide and delays in their own cases, with 160 others joining a hunger strike in support. Al Akabi had been held for a year, as have the rooftop protesters.

In September a similar protest took place at the Villawood center after a Fijian man, Josefa Rauluni, threw himself off the roof of one of the buildings just hours before he was due to be deported. Rauluni had been working in Australia as a fruit picker and had been arrested in August after overstaying his visa. Chinese asylum seekers also staged a rooftop protest at Villawood in September, and Iranian and Kurdish asylum seekers held a 12-day hunger strike.

At the end of November there were a total of 5,746 asylum-seekers in detention in Australia, including 2,786 on Christmas Island. The detention center there, in the Indian Ocean some 200 miles south of Indonesia, was originally built to house 400. In face of rising tensions in the detention prisons, which are run by private contractor Serco, immigration officials have reportedly held off informing detainees when their applications for asylum had been rejected, in some cases for months. The most recent protests erupted following a High Court ruling November 11 that asylum seekers held in "offshore" detention can have their cases reviewed in Australia's courts for the first time since 2001.

The John Howard government enacted legislation in 2001 that was supported by the Labor Party at the time, and maintained by the Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard Labor governments since, to "excise" thousands of islands from Australia's "migration zone." The express aim was to deny all asylum seekers arriving by boat access to Australia's court system to challenge rejected appeals for refugee status.

In a case taken to the High Court by the Refugee and Immigration Legal Centre, two Sri Lankan Tamils due to be deported after the Immigration Department rejected their cases were given the right to appeal.

Meanwhile, with the Christmas Island facility full to overflowing, the Gillard government is continuing to press the East Timorese government to build a detention center on its territory for refugees seeking asylum in Australia.  
 
 
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