Australian Federal Police are struggling to regain control of the ongoing situation on Christmas Island, as detainees continued their week of protests by burning down accommodation tents, vandalising property and throwing rocks.
Bean bag bullets and tear gas were used for the third time this week, after detainees broke through the North West Point detention centre perimeter fence and started advancing on a AFP line set up to block further breakouts. Armed with several improvised weapons, including rocks, and using accelerants such as aerosol cans, the protesters torched seven marquees used for accommodation and recreation.
There were reports this morning of Molotov cocktails being used, but these were not confirmed by the AFP. Several office dongas used to interview detainees were also burnt down in the melee. The AFP has bolstered its numbers to more than 110 on the island as a response to ongoing protests, which the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) have described as “violent” and “challenging”.
Two people were transferred to the Christmas Island medical centre with minor injuries after the skirmish settled at about midnight, island time. Hundreds of detainees and staff were evacuated after the fire spread throughout the grounds, while some Serco staff were treated for the effects of tear gas and smoke inhalation.
About 250 detainees were involved in last night’s protest, which marked the sixth day of demonstrations. The protests began peacefully last Friday before descending into a breakouts and violent skirmishes on Sunday. AFP members stationed on the island used tear gas and less lethal munitions (bean bag bullets) on that occasion to quell the protests, but the demonstrations have continued.
The protesting asylums seekers are believed to be angry with the amount of time taken to process their applications. In a Senate estimates hearing last month, DIAC revealed that 900 people who have been accepted as genuine refugees were still waiting in detention centres because ASIO has not completed their security checks – a number that has grown from 330 last October. Most of these people are being held on Christmas Island.
DIAC national communications manager Sandi Logan told ABC Radio this morning the protests were a “challenging” situation and the response currently under the leadership of the AFP. Drastic steps — including the use of force — had to be taken to regain control of the centre, he said.
“The AFP went to great lengths to seek to calm a group of around 250 or so protests,” he said. “It would seem [the protesters] were quite intent on causing the maximum disruption and causing the maximum level of violence and property damage that they could inflict on the centre.”
Logan also said that a head count had been held to confirm DIAC suspicions of detainee abscondments. Property damage would be assessed this morning, he said, including the damage to the perimeter fence, which led to the detainees’ escape.
It is unclear how the damaged buildings will affect the accommodation situation on the island. There are about 1800 detainees being held in North West Point. According to Serco’s contract with DIAC, North West Point has an operational capacity of 400 and a surge capacity of 800. There are currently 2398 detainees on Christmas Island.
Residents on Christmas Island are also believed to be upset with the ongoing situation on Christmas Island. Residents held a community meeting yesterday to express concerns over the response to the protests. In December last year, a boat wreck claimed the lives of at least 50 asylum seekers when it smashed into the rocks at Christmas Island. Many local residents made efforts to try and save the victims.
Logan says the government had to work to win back the trust and confidence of the locals.
“There were some pointed and probing questions from the community,” he told ABC Radio. “We’ve got to work to earn back the trust of the community. They’ve been through a tough time, [but] I don’t believe that they have to fear for their safety.”
On Wednesday, a group of asylum seekers in Northern Immigration Detention Centre held a demonstration on the rooftop of one of their buildings. In a separate protest yesterday, about 100 detainees at the Curtin detention centre near Derby gathered to protest against their treatment.
In August last year, 80 asylum seekers staged a breakout at Northern Immigration Detention Centre. At Villawood in Sydney last September, a group of detainees held a protest on a roof.
A boat carrying 145 suspected asylum seekers arrived yesterday off Australia’s north-west coast and has been taken to Christmas Island for processing. DIAC has also confirmed that a 20-year-old Afghan asylum seeker has been found dead at Scherger Immigration Detention Centre in Weipa, Queensland.
A new low in the tragedy of Australian asylum seeker policy. The destruction of property is more than matched by the waste of public money spent already to incarcerate people who come seeking protection. Mandatory detention is a bipartisan tough guy approach where there should and could be humanity, full dignity and human rights for men women and children who have already been through hell before crossing our border.
The death by suicide of an Afghan Hazara young man in the tropical gulag of Weipa, N Queensland last night is a death in immigration custody in a system that failed to protect him. It may make a few of those rejected claimants In Curtin think of going back, but not for long, because word is out there about the 400 returnees from Nauru who were conned and deceived by Immigration that it was safe to go back. They fled again from the same Taliban persecution and some opted for the same dangerous escape journey. In the desert centre with nearly 1200 Afghans men they are being rejected again. We have lost our humanity in a sea of regulations and unfounded fear.
For the media – get hold of a book called Border Crimes by Michael Grewcock, it is the best expose to date of how the ALP and Liberal party turned humanitarian protection into border crimes committed by the government over more than 20 years.
With the help of the scabby, ignorant media who never learn and can’t be bothered to learn a bloody thing.
Bowen has just announced yet another inquiry into immigation detention – how many more do we have to have to tell us all what we already know.
IT IS FUCKING ILLEGAL.
Couldn’t agree more, Fred and what a relief to find an informed opinion on this issue, rather than the rabid, ignorant, xenophobic trash straight from the mouths of shock jocks and the Morrisons of this world.
Inagine the impatience, frustration and anger of Australians seeking to leave Japan, although their lives are not under direct threat, if they found they were delayed indefinitely, told nothing and kept there, not even detained, for over eighteen months.
Let Christmas Island burn! Mandatory detention must come to an end. It solves nothing. It didn’t for Howrad nor will it for Howard’s ghost, Julia Gillard. If this is the only way to end it burn it to the ground.
Sitting patiently and quietly in a donga has meant nearly 900 people, legitimately deemed to be refugees, not “illegals”, have waited up to eighteen months for ASIO to get off its arse. Obliging, behaving, “doing the right thing” hasn’t achieved anything. Christmas Island has become Labor’s Nauru. Meanwhile while the hatred, the lies, the utterly false information and “urban myths” pour out of the shock jock’s rabid mouths like ceaseless vomit and the price of their advertising gets ever higher along with their profits.
A government that claims it has to be strong on action against climate change suddenly goes to water when it comes to fighting the ignorance, hatred and brutality of public opinion on asylum seekers. It cannot win this game sitting on the fence. It can only be wedged from there. Time for Labor to tell the nation the truth about boat people and “border protection” and to stand up for what is right, morally imperative and “in the nation’s interests”.
Trouble is Cliff the whole fucking lie of the border protection bullshit was started by the ALP. They love it and hate refugees who dare to access the law and their legal rights.
Punish, abuse and abuse and punish a bit more is their motto.
Bowen has ordered another worthless report – he has had 4 major reports in 4 months and a high court ruling telling him locking people up outside the law is illegal.
Even the Gitmo prisoners have to have access to habeas corpus rights to appeal their detention, not refugees in Australia though.
We treat them worse than we treat mass murderers.
I agree – like Woomera and Baxter, Curtin and Port Hedland the vicious places should all be burnt to the frigging ground and we have to behave like humans instead of lazy racist savages.
Fred and CliffG, I agree with you both. I agree that mandatory detention for an indefinite period is cruel and wrong, I agree that the system, more often than not, fails to protect those most in need. In addition, I believe Australia should increase the number of people it ‘accepts’ under refugee resettlement programs each year.
However, can I please ask you about other options to mandatory detention. I know many groups feel that people seeking asylum should be resettled in the community while their applications are being processed. I do not have an ethical problem with that notion, but I do have a practical one.
If people seeking asylum are living in the community while their applications are being processed, does that not give rise to those who feel their application might be rejected leaving; and would that not also act to draw more people to Australia than other countries, for example.
UNHCR says there are currently 42 million people displaced and seeking asylum throughout the world. I certainly think Australia can do better than the couple of thousand we accept each year – but 42 million?
How do we manage to make the current system more humane without risking a complete implosion of the system itself?