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SYDNEY, Jan 28: Fifteen children and youths at the Woomera Detention Centre in South Australia have made a pact to commit suicide while more than 200 asylum seekers at four of Australia’s five detention centres remain on hunger strike as the crisis enters its second week.
AFP reported at least 370 detainees on hunger strike.
A member of the lawyers group, representing Woomera detainees says mainly Afghan teenagers, aged between 12 and 17, are continuing to say they will take their lives. “Primarily by jumping onto the razor wire, or ingesting some poisonous substance or flushing themselves with some sharp implements,” said the spokesman, Rob McDonald.
Prime Minister John Howard has dismissed the threat and says people in particular circumstances often makes such threats but he will not change government’s tough stance on illegal asylum seekers in Australia.
Immigration Minister, Philip Ruddock, doubts the suicide pact claims are true but a spokesman of the federal government’s Immigration Detention Centre Advisory Groups says the threat is alarming and should not be ignored.
The Immigration Department today confirmed that 259 detainees at Woomera are continuing their hunger strike. Yesterday it had rejected claims from lawyers, representing the detainees, that 370 asylum seekers at Woomera are refusing to eat and had told only 168 were on hunger strike.
The protest that has spread across Australia, started two weeks ago when almost 300 asylum seekers at the Woomera Detention Centre in South Australia started hunger strike and many of them, including children, had stitched their lips. Several protesters at Woomera and in a Western Australian detention at Curtin tried to commit suicide by drinking shampoo, detergents and other toxic material. They are demanding speedy process of their asylum applications and temporary visas to live outside detention centres.
Australia is under attack from the international media on its policies on asylum seekers and the New York Times wrote today that refugee crisis is an embarrassment, threatening to cloud Prime Minister John Howard’s visit to the US. Last week the Howard government was editorially criticised in the Independent newspaper of London.
The government has also come under attack by the newspapers and journalist union over its decision to move journalists away from Woomera Detention Centre. An ABC journalist was arrested on Saturday night when she refused to move away from the area where journalists were camped for more than a week. The publisher of Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne age are considering legal action to overturn the restriction.
The Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance that represents Australian journalists, has strongly condemned the arrest and charging of the journalists. “In the eyes of the international community we are looking more like a military dictatorship,”said union’s branch secretary, Dana Wortey.
Agencies add:
BISHOPS URGE CHANGE: Australian bishops said Monday the procedures used to house and process asylum seekers must be re- assessed to respect their rights and dignity.
The Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference (ACBC) in Canberra said it could sympathise with the government which had to deal with asylum seekers arriving in unpredictable numbers without following proper procedures.
But with detainees at four detention centres on hunger strike and 15 children threatening suicide, the conference said there was now widespread unease about the situation.
“I urge the government to respect the human dignity and rights of asylum seekers, hear their cries for help, and to heed the disquiet of the community,” ACBC president Francis Carroll said.
“I also urge the government to avail itself of the offers of practical assistance from the many groups that wish to assist in the care of the asylum seekers.”
While destructive behaviour and harm inflicted on children were repugnant, the government must recognise they were the responses of desperate and traumatised people, Carroll added.
“Children should not be in such centres in the first place and the causes of desperation must be addressed.”
Catholic Archbishop George Pell said a circuit breaker was needed.
“We understand the government is between a rock and a hard place and we understand their right to control migration,” he said.
“But we believe the policy of deterrence is being implemented at too high a moral cost, so we’re keen for some sort of circuit-breaker.”
So far at least 15 asylum seekers have tried to hang themselves. Others have swallowed shampoo and painkillers.
Up to 370 inmates at the Woomera Detention Centre in South Australia are on hunger strike with 55 more refusing food at three other centres around the country.
Lawyers representing detainees at Woomera said Monday 15 children were threatening to kill themselves in protest at the conditions they are being held in and the time taken to process their claims.
UNHCR: The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) Monday stated its deep concern over the crisis surrounding asylum-seekers in Australia.
UNHCR spokesman Kris Janowski said in Geneva that the hunger- stikers there are a source of grave concern and made it clear at the same time that the agency is against any form of violence. This includes, in particular, inflicting harm on one’s self, he added.
The spokesman described the suicide threat by a group of juveniles as “irresponsibility by the parents”. On the other hand, it reflects the frustration of the people in the Woomera refugee camp, he noted.
Janowski said the UNHCR has a firm position on asylum issues. The extended confinement over months - and even years sometimes - is not a good idea. This especially applies to juveniles too.
A group of 11 juveniles in the Woomera camp are still threatening with suicide if they are not released from the camp, lawyers said Monday. Some hunger-strikers have sewn their lips together.—AFP/dpa
