In its 20 year history, the policy of mandatory detention has incarcerated thousands of refugees, cost billions of dollars and resulted in a series of deaths and untold trauma. The most recent figures of the current detention population are 4,409 including 441 children and underage minors.[1]
Despite the horrors and indignities there is also a record of resistance to this from within and beyond the fences and it is this that is essential to the ongoing campaign that will end this rotten and inhumane system.
The call to action at Baxter in April 2003 reads;
“The invisibility of those inside is made possible by locating the ‘detention facility’ in the desert. Information barriers are strictly policed by the state and the private corporation that profits from incarceration. Letting the imprisonment of those inside go unchallenged will only strengthen the forces that control the lives of people on both sides of the fence.”
This statement remains true nearly a decade later. The ability of the Australian Government, DIAC and SERCO to conceal the reality of their regime is an essential part of their strategy to continue its project of demonisation of the most vulnerable in our society.
DIAC dresses it up as ‘Values’
The Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship cites 7 Key “immigration detention values”. [2] Sections 4, 5 and 7 are of particular note;
“Detention that is indefinite or otherwise arbitrary is not acceptable and the length and conditions of detention, including the appropriateness of both the accommodation and the services provided, would be subject to regular review.”
There is no set limit on the length of detention and so it remains indefinite until such time as the department processes claims, currently over 2,000 of those detained have been for more than a year[3], and a number of cases have come to light of those with refugees status remaining in detention.[4] Refugee status is not assessed until well after a person is detained and so the process of mandatory detention is inherently arbitrary. Over the last 10 years the Human Rights commission has regularly investigated various detention facilities and concluded that the system breaches fundamental human rights.[5] A review may be one thing but acting on it is another and the federal government seems comfortable not to take heed of this advice.
“Detention in immigration detention centres is only to be used as a last resort and for the shortest practicable time”.
The system of mandatory detention is as it sounds: mandatory. There are no other processes in place to avoid this situation and if you’ve had the misfortune of hearing Julia Gillard or Chris Bowen lately you’ll be sure this is the case.
“Conditions of detention will ensure the inherent dignity of the human person.”
This is a gross contradiction in terms, on the one hand to treat a person with human dignity and on the other to incarcerate them in a prison for an indefinite period of time. I recently witnessed a young man being referred to as “176” by a SERCO guard at Leonora. If this is considered treating a person with human dignity then I am on another planet!
The government has ignored such respectable critics as the Australian Medical Association, The Human Rights Commission and Australian of the Year Doctor Pat McGorry for as long as they have voiced their concerns. In the last few weeks as part of Amnesty International’s tour of Australian Detention centres it concluded that Curtin detention centre should be closed immediately.[6] However it is the pressure of the grass roots campaigns in the past that have really put a thorn in the side of the government’s detention regime.
Solidarity and Resistance
The resistance of refugees and their supporters on both sides of the fences has been a regular occurrence that has dotted this system’s sordid history. On the Easter long weekend of 2002, around 1,000 Refugee rights activists from around the country travelled to Woomera Detention centre to protest the rotten conditions experienced by those detained there. “We are human beings not animals!” said one man through the fence poles. The truth could no longer be ignored.
Public opinion changed dramatically in the early 2000’s response to images in the media of refugees sewing their lips together and masses of protestors supporting those inside in their treatment in breaking through the fences such as at Woomera in 2002. In 2005, following a protest at Baxter, polls showed 64 per cent of people supported refugees compared to 32 per cent in 2001.[9] This is a clear indication that public opinion can change when the real suffering and humanity of those detained is revealed. This can only be done by unequivocally denying the legitimacy of the fences, the wires, and of mandatory detention. This is the kind of pressure that is needed to end this system in its entirety.
While the horrors of Australia’s treatment of refugees and asylum seekers reach new lows they are not without opposition and students at UWA should be among those loudly opposing them. It is up to us to be a voice for those whose voices are continually silenced and discredited, to reveal the reality of mandatory detention. Presently Gillard and Abbott race to the bottom confining the discussion in public fora to the most vile and the most brutal of policies. In 2011, there were a series of suicides and protests from within the detention centres, which unfortunately have become an everyday reality. In the six months to June 2011 already there had been 213 injuries from self harm and 723 hospital admissions from voluntary starvation. What is needed is to challenge the physical barriers that bolster the racist ideology peddled by this and governments previous. If you are on the side of human rights then it is time to stand and fight. Will you be on the side of justice, or look back on history in shame? This is a call to action.
Teri Gibson
14th Feb 2012
1.DIAC Website Statistics: http://www.immi.gov.au/managing-australias-borders/detention/facilities/statistics/
2.DIAC website. http://www.immi.gov.au/managing http://www.immi.gov.au/managing-australias-borders/detention/facilities/statistics/-australias-borders/detention/about/key-values.htm
3.DIAC Website Statistics:http://www.immi.gov.au/managing-australias-borders/detention/facilities/statistics/
4.Suicide death at Villawood. http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/sri-lankan-dies-at-sydney-immigration-centre-after-receiving-festival-rejection-letter-20111026-1miox.html
5.Human rights commission Leonora Report: access at http://rran.org/uwa/resources-and-publications
6.ABC News: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-02-13/amnesty-critical-of-christmas-island-detention-centre/3827372
7.Monash Weekly: http://www.monashweekly.com.au/news/local/news/general/monash-university-rooftop-ruckus-over-refugees/2244080.aspx
8.http://www.sa.org.au/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=4586:a-history-of-resistance-on-both-sides-of-the-razor-wire&Itemid=453
9.http://www.sa.org.au/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=5672:refugees-new-visa-a-cruel-hoax-baxter-protest