More Boats Mean More Asylum Seekers in Detention in Australia

In the first two months of 2012, 1165 asylum seekers have arrived in Australia by boat. And all of them have been moved to detention centres.

On 16th February two boats carrying more than 130 asylum seekers were stopped off the coast of Christmas Island. Two days later, Australian authorities intercepted another asylum seeker boat with more than 79 asylum seekers on board. And on 21^st February, two more boats were found in Australian waters. One of the boats was carrying 98 people while the other had 96 passengers. The asylum seekers have been taken to the detention centre on Christmas Island, where they will receive initial security, health and identity checks and their reasons for travel will be established.

Both of the major political parties in Australia want to start offshore processing for asylum seekers who arrive by boat again. But they are still fighting over which country asylum seekers should be sent to. The current Government wants to send asylum seekers to Malaysia. The Liberal Party (in opposition) wants to send asylum seekers to Nauru.

Both sets of politicians are blaming each other for the increase in the numbers of people arriving by boat. The Government’s Minister for Immigration, Chris Bowen, said the latest boat arrivals were because the Liberal Party was refusing to negotiate. “Enough is enough. Australians expect Mr. Abbott to work with the Government to stop people risking their lives at sea,” Mr. Bowen said. The Liberal Party’s immigration spokesman, Scott Morrison, said the  “Labor [party] has lost control of our borders.”

Without offshore processing, the newest asylum seekers to arrive in Australia are being sent to detention centres. A new report by Amnesty International, however, says that conditions in those detention centres are not good for asylum seekers. In fact, they have said the Australian Government should close the remote detention centres like Curtin immediately.

Amnesty spoke with one asylum seeker who has been on detention for more than two years, waiting for the refugee application to be processed. The asylum seeker told Amnesty, “the only way to pass the time and escape the heat is to rely on medication to sleep the days away.”

Amnesty spokesperson Graham Thom said that there was an “air of hopelessness” among the asylum seekers and that their mental health was “obviously being crushed” by spending up to three years waiting. Amnesty says that asylum seekers should be detained only for a maximum of 30 days once they reach Australia.

There are currently 3031 people in immigration detention centres around Australia. Almost a third have been in detention for more than a year.

Australia’s Curtin Detention Centre Criticized Again

Curtin Detention Centre, in a remote area of West Australia, is in the spotlight again after another human rights organization visits and says the centre needs to be shut down.

Amnesty International sent a delegation to inspect the detention centre last week as part of a tour of detention centres around Australia. The four-person delegation spent two days at the centre, meeting with around 860 men currently detained there. After the visit, Amnesty International declared that the centre should be closed immediately. Amnesty’s Refugee Coordinator, Graeme Thom, said that there was an “air of hopelessness” among the asylum seekers and that their mental health was “obviously being crushed” by spending up to three years waiting.

Curtin Immigration Detention Centre is in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. The Centre was once described as the Australia’s “most primitive” immigration detention centre and was closed by the Howard Government in 2002 following a riot. The current Gillard Government reopened Curtin in 2010 to hold Afghan and Sri Lankan asylum seekers whose applications for refugee status had been rejected. Curtin was built to house between 1200 and 1500 people and there are currently 856 men being detained there. In 2011, 1433 asylum seekers were being held in Curtin, the largest group of detained asylum seekers in Australia. There have been consistent reports of riots, hunger strikes, self-harm, suicide and depression amongst asylum seekers detained there.

In 2011, Australia’s Human Rights Commissioner visited Curtin. Following her tour, she raised concerns about the conditions in the centre. She noted that more than three-quarters of Curtin detainees were held for longer than six months and a third had been detained more than a year. She argued that “this indefinite detention, particularly in a remote place, is very damaging to their mental health.” She said that asylum seekers spoke to the delegation “about sleeplessness, about feelings of wanting to suicide.” She also said that “there have been mass voluntary starvation, people have been burning themselves with cigarettes, cutting themselves with razors and they tell us things like we are dying from the inside out.”

The Human Rights Commissioner raised serious concerns about the mental health of asylum seekers detained in Curtin. According to the report, an Afghan man being held in Curtin said “we feel that we have lost everything here – our hope, our health, our memories, our names, our ability to help our families, our minds. We are more than half way to dead now. We are all dying here, from the inside out. We see others who have gone mad and think that we are going there too.”

Amnesty’s full findings report will be released immediately after the tour on February 16 and a more comprehensive report on detention centre conditions around Australia is due later this year.

More Asylum Seekers Die Trying to Reach Australia

Boats carrying asylum seekers trying to reach Australia continue to sink due to damaged boats and bad weather.

The most recent sinking was off the coast of Malaysia on the 2^nd of February. At least eight people were killed. 18 people have been rescued and there may still be more people missing. The boat was carrying asylum seekers from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq. Four Pakistanis and one Afghan man were among the eight killed. It is understood that the asylum seekers had got to Malaysia by land from Thailand. A Malaysian Police spokesperson said none of the men had travel documents.

A 22-year old Afghan man, known only as Sayed was quoted as saying that the 11-metre boat was too small for all the people in the group but that they had been told it was safe. “The journey was initially smooth, but about two hours later, the sea became choppy and I could see water getting into the boat,” he said. “It was at this time that the boatman turned off the engine and everyone panicked. Suddenly, the boat started to sink. We all jumped into the water.”

Around the same time, another group of asylum seekers had to be rescued off the coast of Indonesia. This boat was carrying 54 ethnic Rohingya asylum seekers from Burma. They were believed to be heading to Australia but had to be rescued by fisherman after their boat broke down and was being battered by large waves. One of the fishermen involved in the rescue says the boat was damaged and its engine had broken down.

These recent boat sinkings come just two months after more than 200 asylum seekers drowned off the Indonesian coast. Of the estimated 250 asylum seekers on board that boat only 47 survived.

The Australian Immigration Minister, Mr Chris Bowen said these boat tragedies showed why the Australian Government needed to work with the Malaysian Government to break the business model of people smugglers. He said: “We believe the Malaysian arrangement is the best policy approach, both for Australia and for asylum seekers, providing, as it does, a clear deterrence to people getting on precarious boats and risking their lives.”

In 2011 the Australian Government agreed with Malaysia to send 800 asylum seekers arriving by boat in Australia back to Malaysia. In return, Malaysia would send 4000 asylum seekers who had already been found to be refugees to Australia. The agreement was stopped by the Australian Courts in August.

Speaking at a conference on refugee issues in Melbourne, the Immigration Minister confirmed that the government would keep working to get the people-swap deal with Malaysia implemented. The Minister said the Australian Government was “convinced of its importance and virtue.”

Australian Politicians Want Tougher Measures for Asylum Seekers Without Passports

As more asylum seekers try to reach Australia by boat, there is increasing debate in Australia about ensuring that only genuine refugees are granted protection visas and allowed to stay.

Recent government statistics showed that, between July 2010 and October 2011 3,237 asylum seekers admitted that they had flown to Indonesia using their passports but only 37 of them had their passports by the time they reached Australia.

The Australian Liberal Party (currently in opposition) says that because the rates are so high, the laws should be made tougher. They want people arriving by boat to be penalized if they have destroyed their identity documents and for it to be harder for them to claim refugee status.

“Our starting point is to say if they've destroyed their documents, then we think there should be a presumption that it's going to be more difficult for them to achieve refugee status,” a Liberal Party politician said. “What we are saying is that people who are genuine refugees ... should be coming with their identity documents because that gives them maximum opportunity to demonstrate their bona fides.”

At the same time the current Australian Government is working with Indonesia to break the people smugglers business model and reduce the number of asylum seekers trying to get to Australia by boat from Indonesia. People smugglers often provide their clients with false passports and visas to get into Indonesia. Asylum seekers then leave Indonesia by boat to try to reach Australia. The two governments will now be working together to make it harder for people to use false passports and false visas to get into Indonesia.