The death of a refugee at Villawood Detention Centre is the latest indictment of the bipartsian cruelty towards refugees in Australia. Pip Hinman reports.
Ian Rintoul
Nilofar told a forum by video link from Indonesia that refugees stranded there are not allowed to work or study, which has led some to suicide. Chris Slee reports.
Chris Petersen and Chloe DS report that 14 refugees have been on hunger strike for more than a week in protest at their imprisonment.
Paul Gregoire looks at new changes to the Migration Act, which allow the federal government to lock people in immigration detention indefinitely.
A desperate rooftop protest by an Iranian refugee being held on Christmas Island was restarted on June 11 after being subjected to further inhumanity.
Ghazi (not his real name), and another refugee took to the roof of the detention centre in late May to protest the conditions and the lack of access to medical care. According to the Refugee Action Coalition (RAC) both men had been in detention for over 3 years and were apparently taken to court and charged over an alleged incident prior to the May protest.
More than 1500 people crowded into Sydney's ornate Town Hall as an east coast low brought rain tumbling down, to rally for refugees.
The pre-election refugee rights rally, themed 'Close Manus, Close Nauru, Bring Them Here', was held during World Refugee Week.
Speakers included Socialist Alliance Senate candidate Ken Canning, who gave a moving acknowledgment of country; Ian Rintoul from Refugee Action Coalition; TV personality Margaret Pomeranz, Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon, Sophia from Young Labor for Refugees, Hamad, a refugee, and Judith and Evan, who were teachers formerly on Nauru.
Immigration department officials seized pregnant Somali refugee Abyan from Villawood detention centre and flew her to the Solomon Islands on October 16, with the plan to fly her from there to Nauru.
Abyan had been flown in from Nauru four days earlier to see doctors regarding the planned termination of a pregnancy that resulted from her being raped while in detention on the island.
The second suicide in little more than two months took place at Villawood detention centre on the night of November 15.
Ahmad Al Akabi, 41, was found by fellow detainees hanged in a bathroom.
After spending more than a year in the Christmas Island and Villawood detention centres, his asylum application had been rejected twice under the off-shore processing system that was found to be invalid in a recent High Court decision.