BY SARAH STEPHEN
In the last weeks, further incidents of abuse of asylum seekers have come to light at detention centres on Christmas Island, Nauru and Woomera.
An Iraqi woman, detained on Christmas Island with her husband and two children, was flown to a Western Australian hospital during the week beginning January 13. She died at the hospital from a brain tumour or cerebral haemorrhage, according to Jack Smit, coordinator of the WA refugee group Project SafeCom.
It was reported to Smit that the woman had been sick for weeks, complaining of headaches and vomiting in Christmas Island's detention centre, but just received treatment from Australasian Correctional Management (ACM), which runs Australia's detention centres, in the form of Panadol and the advice to drink more water.
Melbourne refugee advocates Julian Burnside and Kate Durham have received letters from asylum seekers on Nauru explaining that since a disturbance in the camp on December 24, they have had only one meal per day, they have inadequate fresh water (detainees are now dependent on rainwater), no medical attention is available to injured and sick detainees and no cigarettes are available — those who smoke are using dried leaves.
Durham tried to check these allegations on January 21, phoning Cy Winter, the head of the International Organisation for Migration, which runs the camp. Winter asserted that there are no "detainees" and the refugees are "not in Nauru". Rather, they are "in an IOM refugee processing centre".
"This suggests that IOM is treating Nauru as our own Guantanamo Bay", writes Burnside, "a place where faceless people are held out of sight; where legal rights do not exist and access to legal help is denied".
"Winter refused to discuss any of the substantive matters concerning the conditions in which detainees are being held", Burnside continued. "This reinforces the impression that the IOM, as well as the Australian government, are at pains to prevent news about conditions in Nauru becoming public."
On January 17, State House, one of the two detention camps on Nauru, burnt down in a major fire. Accommodation was destroyed, and at the time of a call made to a refugee supporter in Australia, asylum seekers were out in the rain without shelter. The immigration department refused to confirm whether the fire had taken place.
The policy of collective punishment, following the new year fires, has continued at the Woomera detention centre. Detainees in Oscar compound were denied breakfast and lunch on January 18. After dinner, guards were posted at the doors of the mess to ensure that no food was taken out. They are no longer allowed to make tea and coffee in their rooms.
Green Left Weekly spoke to a detainee, "Joe", on January 23. He said that things were "very, very bad now; much worse than before", with "many officers swearing at people... Anyone who disagrees with an officer, even for small things, will be put in isolation".
Joe recounted an example of an Iranian man who asked a guard for a cup of tea at midnight. "The guard said no. The man asked 'Why do you treat me like that?', to which the guard answered: 'Because you are all animals'."
Joe, who is distrusted by ACM, had been falsely accused of saying that he wanted to kill a supervisor. "Sometimes I feel like I am in the Gaza Strip!" he said. Sometimes officers sneak up outside their rooms, Joe explained. "They want to listen to what we say."
Referring to the two Woomera detainees arrested on January 21 for alleged involvement in lighting the fire, Joe told GLW: "One man, an Iraqi, didn't do anything! There are 20 eyewitnesses who can confirm it. He is a quiet man."
Joe explained how police had interrogated detainees one by one, hypothesising that someone may have dobbed in the Iraqi. He recounted his own experience of being bribed to tell the police what they wanted to know. An immigration department manager promised to grant him his request to move away from the heat to Maribyrnong detention centre if he would tell police who started the fire.
From Green Left Weekly, January 29, 2003.
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