Sarah Stephen
The immigration department’s website claims that as of August 26 there were 667 people still being held in detention. The department does not include in those figures the 27 asylum seekers remaining on Nauru. Villawood detention centre held 358 people. Another 128 were in Baxter.
Of all the detainees, 103 people were in “other places of detention”, which includes correctional facilities, watch houses, hotels, apartments, foster care, community detention, hospitals and “illegal foreign fishers in harbours awaiting departure, removal or court appearance”. The largest group was the families released from detention centres into community detention between June and August.
According to figures collected by refugee advocates, at least nine of those who have been released into community detention are asylum seekers who had spent more than two years in detention.
The immigration department states: “Approximately 75% of detainees arrived in Australia with a visa and have been detained as the result of compliance action by the department. The majority of these detainees are not seeking asylum.” However, figures gathered informally from various sources indicate that around 50% of those still in detention are asylum seekers.
According to an informal survey conducted in June by a Chinese detainee in Villawood, 118 men and 19 women Chinese detainees were seeking asylum. Many are democracy activists; a small number are Falun Gong practitioners. The 27 men still imprisoned on Nauru are all asylum seekers.
Refugee advocates’ figures as of August 16 indicate that 44 of those people in detention who were asylum seekers had been detained for more than two years. This included seven people in Adelaide’s Glenside psychiatric hospital.
From Green Left Weekly, September 14, 2005.
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