"We are suffering inside the camp" Making an example of people without the necessary papers.
Sunday, February 6, 2000 Australia.
Asylum-seekers incarcerated at the Curtin refugee camp in Western Australia have been on a hunger-strike since Wednesday demanding better living conditions.
In a letter smuggled out of the camp to a newspaper, the hunger-strikers had written, "We are suffering inside the camp. Where is human right. Please help us. We will die if nobody come to help us. We are dying. Hurry up before we die."
Australian Immigration Minister, Phillip Ruddock, refused to consider their demands for better living conditions and insisted that they communicate to others potentially seeking asylum in Australia that they will not be welcome.
Curtin is a disused air-base in Western Australia's arid north-west. It was recently transformed into a refugee camp with the addition of barbed wire and guards. It is now mid-summer in Australia, where temperatures in the desert are excessive and dangerous. One woman has already been hospitalised suffering dehydration.
There are over 1,000 people currently being held at Curtin. There have been numerous attempts at freedom, the most recent in December of last year.
An Immigration Department spokesperson told reporters, "They came here expecting a very quick and comfortable process." The spokeperson was quick to add, "They were deluded."
According to UN conventions, to which Australia is a signatory, people cannot be treated in ways calculated to make an example of them. The Australian Government continues to justify both detention, and now indifference to suffering, in terms of deterrance. Western Australian Premier, Richard Court, said that if the refugees did not like conditions at Curtin, they should "go back home".
Since changes to the law, it is no longer possible for those who are imprisoned in the detention camps to charge the Government with unlawful detention or to seek compensation for their maltreatment. Successive changes to the law have outlawed communications between the Australian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission and imprisoned asulym-seekers unless the person has specifically asked for help from the Commission, and do not compel Immigration authorities to inform asylum-seekers of any remaining rights they have to legal representation or their right to make an applications for refugee status.
The new Border Protection Legislation means that even if asylum-seekers who arrive in Australia without papers meet the stringent criteria for permanent refugee status, they will only be given three-year temporary visas after which they will have to leave Australia or face automatic deportation to the country of origin.
The Australian Government claims such draconian measures are necessary because of the flood of 'boat people', most of whom come from Asia and more recently from Iran and Iraq also. Since 1989-90, 3,568 people without papers have arrived in Australia by boat.
AM.