Detainees launch hunger strike

Sarah Stephen, Sydney

A number of detainees at Sydney's Villawood detention centre went on hunger strike from October 5-8. Asylum seekers and other immigration detainees joined together to stage the protest to ensure that the plight of those in immigration detention was not forgotten prior to the federal election.

Detainees reported that Villawood management deployed a Centre Emergency Response Team (CERT) and for days men resembling the Star Wars character Darth Vader wandered around the compounds, terrifying children with batons, handcuffs and two-way radios. Two Chinese hunger strikers were reportedly handled roughly by the CERT team and put into the high-security Stage One area.

Refugee advocate Ngareta Rossell told Green Left Weekly that the CERT teams aren't trained to deal with families and children, and are mostly recruited from among those who have worked in the prison system. "It's outrageous that children have to be exposed to this; it's well documented that it causes terrible nightmares and bed-wetting. It affects them very badly in the long term."

Thirty children remain imprisoned in Villawood detention centre.

From Green Left Weekly, October 13, 2004.

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From GLW issue 602