Baxter Asylum Seekers Protest Indefinite Detention
13/12/2006
Thirty people staged a protest after six people attempted to take their own lives inside the Baxter Detention centre near Port Augusta over the past week. A Detainee said "It's just a process of long-term immigration detention, it's unnecessary, it's unreasonable," he said. "Any other country in the world - and Australia is a wonderful country - but any other country in the world, they detain you for 30 days, they identify you, then they release you. There is no purpose for us being here. We have been vilified by the Government in order to justify our detention. This is unfair." [ Read more...]
"The mental health record of the Baxter Immigration Detention Facility is appalling. These desert prisons are especially cruel because they isolate detainees from friends and family. The Government's mandatory detention policy breeds despair and in turn leads to these tragic attempted suicides," said Kerry Nettle, a Greens Party Senator.
Perth IMC: Six hangings at Baxter detention centre
Long Term Detainees Walk Free from Immigration Detention
13/10/2006
Three detainees recently walked free from immigration detention. All came out of psychiatric hospitals after years in detention. The longest was 6 years. "Six long hard years of soul destroying, spirit breaking detention for no moral reason. One permanent protection visa and two temporary visas in the Vanstone lottery." said Pamela Curr of the Melbourne Asylum Seekers Resource Centre.
A new report by the Edmund Rice Centre (ERC) accuses the Government of deporting asylum seekers to danger. According to the report, 39 of the 41 asylum seekers interviewed in 2006 by the Centre were deported to danger. "Fundamental reform is needed if we are to honour human rights obligations and the values they enshrine. Those who are in danger have compelling cases for their claims to be reassessed.” said Edmund Rice Centre (ERC) director Phil Glendenning.
[Read more...]
Deported to Danger Project |
DIMA: Detention Statistics |
Refugee Action Collective
Tampa Asylum Seekers Remembered
27/08/2006
On the 5th anniversary of the Tampa incident, people in Melbourne gathered to enact a symbolic journey crossing the Yarra on the footbridge, led by drummers, dancers, a choir and giant banners with faces and stories of refugees. On the footbridge the procession paused for 5 minutes to reflect upon the awful toll inflicted on asylum seekers over this period, before proceeding to hear speeches. [ Full Story] | [ Photos and Report]
SIEV X |
Truth Overboard |
Refugee Action Collective
Tampa Remembered
27/08/2005
From the newswire
The fourth anniversary of the Tampa crisis was remembered on Friday by
protests in Sydney and Melbourne. In 2001, in the lead up to an
election,
the Australian Government used SAS troops to board the Norwegian
Container
vessel, Tampa, to prevent 438 asylum seekers from landing in Australia
and
seeking refugee status. Many of the people became occupants of the
Government's "Pacific Solution" on Manus Island and Nauru, before
finally
having their refugee claims assessed. [ Full
Story | Report and more photos ] Video [ 1 ]
No Border Network
|
Refugee Action Collective (Vic)
Abuses uncovered in Immigration system
15/07/2005
Three cases of abuse uncovered by the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre illustrate how little has changed in the mandatory detention regime, even after the Government's much heralded Palmer report. [ Full Story]
“Nothing has changed in DIMIA’s treatment of detainees since the scandals of Ms Rau and Ms Alvarez were made public. Judicial oversight of deportation and independent enforceable medical care is essential to stop the zealots in their tracks followed by a broad inquiry with full powers to subpoena witnesses and documents and offer protection to whistleblowers”. - Pamela Curr of the ASRC.
Background
[Asylum Seeker Resource Centre |
baxterwatch.net/ ]
Vanstone censored, Royal Commission demanded on Immigration Abuse
14/05/2005
Refugee activists protested on Friday to demand a
Royal Commission into abuses of power within the Department of
Immigration, and the resignation of former Minister for Immigration,
Phillip Ruddock and present Minister, Amanda Vanstone. The protest in
Melbourne was in response to the case of Australian woman Vivian
Alvarez Solon who was wrongly deported to the Philippines four years
ago and "untraceable" until recently, and that of an Ahwaz Iranian
asylum seeker, currently facing forcible deportation.
Maria Selga, Chairperson of the Centre for Philippine Concerns
Australia - Victoria, said "The Filipino community, with a
population of more than a hundred thousand, will not take this issue
lightly. The experiences of the past week have encouraged us to join
the many voices that clamour for changes in the Immigration system..."
A spokeperson for the Refugee Action Collective, Lauren Ireland,
said "Just two days ago, Minister of Immigration, Amanda Vanstone was
claiming her department was unable to locate Australian citizen Vivian
Alvarez, who had been wrongly deported to her country of birth, the
Phillipines, four years ago. She was soon found and identified in the
very same place she had been dumped and was being cared for in a
hospice for the dying, run by an Australian priest. Alvarez was
stripped of her human rights and then simply forgotten about." [Report and
Photos of protest]
Related Stories:
Immigration
Minister censured by the Senate
Family
want Great Grandmother out of Detention Alive Not Dead
[Nauruwire |
Refugee Action Collective |
Project Safecom
melb-imc
(top)
|
Rallies in 
