FEBRUARY 2012

ANTI SERCO PROTEST

Friday March 912:00pm to 1:00pm

Outside Serco Offices at 225 St Georges Terrace.

NORTHAM CONVEREGENCESaturday MAY 5Yongah Hill Immigration

Detention Centre, Northam

10.30am to 1.30pm

RRAN UWA FORUM

Arts Lecture Room 9Tuesday 27th March

at 1pm

Featuring:

• National student protests against mandatory detention

•Why Activism? The campaign

to end mandatory detention.

• Report back from Leonora

convergence

RRAN

UW

A

Students take to the roof in support of protesting refugees...On Tuesday the 13th of

September RRAN UWA staged a protest on campus in solidarity with refugees in detention. The preceding two days, 38 unaccompanied minors had been on hunger strike at Port Augusta. This was in line with a similar protest that took place at melbourne Uni (pictured above) on the same day. Weeks Earlier Monash Uni

(RAC) had responded to a rooftop protest at the Darwin Detention Centre by staging their own for 6 hours on top of a university building in solidarity. A spokesperson for the Monash Refugee Action Collective explained:  "Right now people are bombarded with anti-refugee rhetoric by the government and we want people to know what

refugees are fleeing, what their plight is and why Australia should stand with them and not against them. It's the reason that all of us are on the roof."

The Nation wide solidarity protests show that students across the country condemn the Australian Government’s treatment of Asylum seekers and are prepared to do something about it.

NATIONWIDE STUDENT PROTESTS

IN SOLIDARITY WITH REFUGEES

UWA

MONASH

MELBOURNE UNI

RRAN UWA Activist Anita Creasey Elected to UWA Guild Council.Anita is a founding member of the Refugee Rights Action Network at

UWA. After running on the Left Action ticket in last year’s guild elections

she now occupies a place on the Guild council. Anita is a dedicated

activist and has started a campaign against the recent cuts to gender

studies and is also involved in the campaign to close the graduate

gender pay gap. The National Union of Students WA and the UWA guild

both have policies on their books in support of the rights of refugees and

in 2012, Anita looks to ensure these policies are carried out in real action

rather than just sentiment.

SERCOBringing Service to Life (and Death) – For Profit

In 2009 the SERCO company won the contract to run Australia’s immigration detention facilities. SERCO describes itself as an “international service company”.[1]   The company delivers immigration detention, custodial, rehabilitation, defence, health, education, transport and other “services” in a number of countries.In the United Kingdom SERCO, as part of a joint venture company with Lockheed Martin and British Nuclear Fuels, manages and operates the UK’s Atomic Weapons Establishment. It also administers four UK prisons, an institution for young offenders, and two immigration removal centres.In Australia, in addition to running immigration detention centres, SERCO runs Acacia prison in WA and Borallon Correctional Centre in Queensland.The company’s website boasts, “[w]e are committed to social responsibility and endeavour to treat people in the way we would wish to be treated.”[2]The reality of detention for asylum seekers and SERCO’s own performance here and overseas appears to contradict this claim.

• 2010 Australian of the Year and mental health expert Patrick McGorry, described detention centres for asylum seekers as "factories for producing mental illness".#[3]

• In Australia’s immigration detention facilities there were 39 instances of ''actual self harm'' in the year to June 30, up from 10 the year before. Another 25 detainees have willfully hurt themselves in the three months since. ''The fact is we're now hearing about the spread of this behaviour among adolescents,'' the chairwoman of the government advisory group on asylum seekers, Louise Newman, said. [4]

• Refugee Rights Action Network (RRAN) visitors to Leonora’s “alternative place of detention” (an official euphemism) in August 2010 reported, "Mothers cannot cook for their children, (SERCO) prison guards are watching their children all the time, intervening in the parental relationships with

their children ...  The conditions out in this camp are such that we have children living in a prison camp, not prison like conditions, these children are imprisoned."[5]

• At Villawood detention centre in September 2010 a Fijian man, Josefa Rauluni, leaped to his death from the roof of a building rather than face deportation. SERCO guards failed to prevent the death despite having been made aware of the man’s distress. President of the Fiji Democracy and Freedom Movement, Usaia Peter Waqatairewa, who spoke to Rauluni just prior to his death told a SERCO officer, “listen the guy is suicidal - please refrain and get a professional negotiator to deal with it or get someone in authority.”[6]

The suicide led to a series of anguished rooftop protests by detainees at Villawood.

• In the UK, January 2010, the high court ordered a new inquest into the death of 14 year Adam Rickwood who hanged himself in Hassockfield secure training centre, a private institution run by SERCO. Adam, who died in 2004, had been ordered to return to his cell and when he refused was “restrained” by SERCO guards. Commenting on this “restraint”, Justice Blake said the physical interference with Adam was a breach of the rules and an assault on him." On top of all that ... it can now be seen that, not only was there no lawful authority to do any of this to Adam, but doing this to him was subjecting him to  at least degrading treatment contrary to Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights." [7]

• At SERCO run Kilmarnock Prison in Scotland a p r i s o n e r d i e d f r o m s u s p e c t e d meningitisafterpleasfor medical help from his cell were ignored by warders. Figures from the Scottish Prison Service reveal that Kilmarnock prison has a higher than average number of deaths in custody in Scotland.[8] 

• During a 2008 visit to Doncaster prison, run by SERCO, the UK chief inspector of prisons, said "we were disappointed to find that two-person cells had been turned into three-person cells by placing a bed in the shared toilet. This was unacceptable." Inspectors also found "worrying" deterioration in healthcare and poor access to GPs, which they said must be urgently addressed. Incidents of violence and self-harm had also increased.[9]

None of this is to argue that Australia’s immigration detention facilities should be returned to public sector management. Rather it is to point out the inherent injustice of detaining asylum seekers and to emphasize the particularly dangerous practice of allowing a private profit driven company to manage that system. Asylum seekers have committed no crime and should not be imprisoned, in public or private facilities. But while it is unjust to detain asylum seekers, it is monstrous to make a profit out of doing so.

1 See SERCO’s website, http://www.serco-ap.com.au/home/home.html2 http://www.serco-ap.com.au/about_serco/five_foundation_stones.html3 Stefanie Balogh, “Aussie of Year Patrick McGorry blasts asylum policy”, Courier Mail, 25 January 2010. 4 Yuko Narushima, “Self-harm rates increase fourfold”, The Age, 4 October 2010.5 “Refugee children 'bed-wetting, self-harming'” http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/08/16/2983721.htm. DIAC’s claim that the RRAN did not gain access to the centre is refuted by both video and photographic evidence. 6 Lanai Vasek, “Detainee killed in Villawood fall faced deportation to Fiji, warned 'send my dead body”, The Australian, 20 September 2010. 7 “New inquest ordered into teenage boy's death in custody”, Guardian, 22 January 2009, 8 Kate Smith, “Inmate's pleas for aid overlooked four days before death”, Herald Scotland, 19 July 2008. 9 Sara Gaines, “Inmates sleep in toilets at overcrowded prison”, The Guardian, 22 July 2008.

Strength in Resistance: Why Activism is an essential part of the campaign to end Mandatory detention. 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.

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“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.

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:

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

QUICK FACTSChildren remain incarcerated in Australia’s detention facilities. Leonora Detention centre currently houses 160 14 to 17 year olds.

The highest number of children in detention at any one time between 1 January 1999 and 1 January 2004 was 842 (on 1 September 2001). Of this number, 456 were at the Woomera detention centre.

In 2010 Australia received around 1 percent of the world's asylum claims. Australia has a quota and only accepts 14,750 humanitarian entrants each year. UNHCR October 18, 2011 report.

Fleeing persecution is not a crime. In fact, seeking asylum is a human right. It is not illegal to seek asylum without a visa. Around 80 percent of asylum seekers who come to Australia by boat are found to be refugees.

Australia is one of few nations in the world which imposes mandatory detention on asylum seekers. In the Western world, this policy is largely viewed as abhorrent, especially as the individual has not committed a crime by seeking asylum and detaining them for this reason breaches international law.

Challenging the torture of Indefinite detentionEmma Norton Reports back on RRAN’s converegence to Leonora...

Over the Invasion Day weekend, 38 refugee rights activists made the trip to the Leonora detention centre to protest against mandatory detention. The centre, situated 11 hours’ drive from Perth, currently imprisons around 160 unaccompanied minors from Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran. It puts absolute lie to Labor’s promises to remove all children from detention, as well as demonstrating the government’s “out of sight, out of mind” philosophy when it comes to refugees. We were able to visit and speak with around 30 refugees, and, through brilliant direct action, were able to show every refugee in the centre that we do not recognise the legitimacy of their imprisonment. The trip reconfirmed the injustices of mandatory detention, with boys being referred to by number and one refugee saying, “We eat, we sleep, eat and sleep, we are very tired… it’s the waiting that affects us mentally.” Our attempts at communicating with the boys in detention were constantly hindered by both

Serco and the police. After we were greeted by dozens of refugees, waving enthusiastically and showing peace signs, at the inner gate, Serco attempted to block our interaction by parking three buses in front of the refugees. Our formal visits were also tightly policed from the start, with between two and five guards in the room at any time. While the boys would loudly repeat that Serco treated them well, at points when guards became distracted some would quickly gesture that they were being mistreated and the guards were taking notes. On two separate occasions the guards referred to individual boys by number, at one point asking, “Is 176 here?” Another guard introduced a young Mohammed by saying “Here is 428; he speaks good English”. We discovered that many of the refugees had been imprisoned in Australian detention centres for over a year. One 17-year-old had been counting every day of his unjust imprisonment, telling us he’d reached two years and five days, while only just having completed his second interview with the Department of Immigration. The coupling of the uncertainty of indefinite detention and the abusive conditions in the Serco run facilities means that the mental health of these

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young men is rapidly deteriorating. One described the experience as “Like going into a tunnel with no light”. The government relies on the fact that these facilities exist hundreds of kilometres into the desert in order to further dehumanise and isolate detainees. Before our first trip out to Leonora in 2010, the government was still running with the line that there were no children in detention. This is why the refugee rights campaign, in every state, must continue to make trips to remote detention centres to expose the lies and break the silence surrounding them. As well as just visiting, civil disobedience and direct action have always formed a major part of the refugee rights campaign. These acts and stunts demonstrate to refugees and the Australian public that we do not recognise the legitimacy of the fences and that we are not afraid to directly challenge them. But the usefulness of such disobedience goes beyond symbolism: in the past it is

what has pushed the refugee issue into the spotlight. So as a small-scale defiance of Serco’s management (who only allowed us to meet with a fraction of the detainees), activists climbed on top of the back fence of the detention centre chanting “Freedom, azadi, horrea!” (Azadi and horrea mean “freedom” in Farsi and Arabic.) The boys had been playing in the out-door basketball court area. When we appeared from over the fence, many of them joined in the chants and came over to high-five us. At the same time we threw hundreds of tennis balls with written messages over the fence. Serco guards, in an effort to minimise the boys’ contact with the outside world, quickly ended their leisure time and forced them into their rooms. We continued to stand on the tin fence shouting “Free the refugees!” while some of the boys defiantly stuck their hands out of windows and fences to wave to us.

The campaign should continue to visit these remote prisons and expose the brutality of the system of indefinite mandatory detention. Only through this, and our dedication to direct, defiant actions that challenge the Department of Immigration and Serco’s authority, can we build a campaign of thousands that can ultimately tear down the fences that keep refugees imprisoned.

Photo: Tristan Kewe

Picture above drawn by Hussain, a refugee detained at Leonora.