SYDNEY, Jan 30: The 16-day hunger strike, sewing of lips and other forms of self-harming protests by asylum-seekers at Woomera and other detention centres across Australia ended after government started processing their applications for refugee status.
The suicide pact of 11 youths, who had given a 24-hour notice on Tuesday evening of taking their lives if their demands were not met, has also been withdrawn.
In return of ending the protests, the government has promised to immediately resume processing the asylum applications of Afghan refugees, suspended last year after the fall of Taliban. The detainees have also been promised of a speedy decision process and better communications with asylum-seekers with a view to informing them about the process of their applications.
But Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock says the settlement should not be seen as softening of the government’s position on mandatory detention of asylum-seekers. He told reporters that the government would remain firm on its immigration policy even if it were accused of being unkind.
The “approach I have to take in relation to these matters require a degree of firmness which some people think demonstrates lack of humanity,” said Ruddock while talking to journalists on Wednesday afternoon.
The breakthrough came after two days of talks with the representatives of protesters, initiated by members of the government appointed Immigration Detention Advisory Group (IDAG). The members of the IDAG who had negotiated with the detainees until late Tuesday night and returned again on Wednesday afternoon, talked to journalists outside the Woomera Detention Centre and announced that “the impasse is over.”
“Afghan hunger strikers are not on hunger strike, none of them has his or her lips sealed and we entered into a process that we hope will end in fair and just results for everyone,” said Ray Funnell, acting chairman of the IDAG.
A representative of Woomera detainees called ABC from inside the detention centre and said the detainees planned to begin eating and drinking again from 3pm Australia time. “From right now, we are breaking our hunger strike,” said Hassan Varasi, an Afghan detainee at the centre.
After the protest is over, human rights and refugees groups are questioning the location of the centre, described by some observers as hellhole. Government’s own advisory committee, the IDAG, that has successfully negotiated the end of hunger strike, has recommended to close down the facility. The government initially rejected the advice but the immigration minister says the centre may be scaled down when a new detention centre is opened at an old military base near Port Augusta, also in South Australia.
Woomera, where more than 800 asylum seekers are detained, was a rocket-launch base and is located in the hot and harsh South Australian outback.
PAKISTANIS: Unknown numbers of Pakistanis are reported to be among the asylum-seekers of the Woomera Detention Centre
A Melbourne newspaper, quoting official sources, reported on Tuesday that a group of 67 Woomera detainees, including several believed to be responsible for inciting protests, will be deported as soon as documentation is complete. The report says the 67 deportees include Afghans, Iraqis, Iranians and Pakistanis.
The authorities at the centre, who have blocked information about the occupants of the centre and are keeping journalists away from the vicinity of the centre, were not forthcoming and refused to identify the detainees or to acknowledge their nationality.
An official from the Pakistan consulate, however, denied that there was any Pakistani among the asylum-seekers in any of the detention centres. “They could be Afghans carrying Pakistani travel documents, but we have no information of a Pakistani national among the detainees,” Pakistan Consul-General Munawar Abbas told Dawn on Tuesday night.
