Asylum seekers treatment in Australia`s Detention Centre`s

A Serco training manual instructing immigration detention centre guards to use force to incapacitate detainees was leaked. It included techniques to kick, punch and target pressure points on detainees.

Serco Group plc is a British government services company based in United Kingdom. its operations are public and private transport and traffic control, aviation, military and nuclear weapons contracts, detention centers, prisons, and schools. Currently Serco has a $1 billion contract with the Gillard Government to run nine detention centers and is thought to be responsible for 4783 asylum seekers across Australia.

Recently a prison-style training manual purportedly designed by Serco has been leaked by Crikey online, detailing explicit instructions on how to use pain to "control and restrain" hostile detainees.

Firstly personnel are taught to target detainees' pressure points and put detainees in "joint-lock control and escort" positions to render them motionless. Beyond those responses are defensive counter strikes that involve straight punches, palm heel strikes, side angle kicks, front thrust kicks and knee strikes.

The theory behind the counter strikes is to "create temporary motor dysfunction" and "temporary muscle impairment" through the "fluid shock wave" that gets sent around detainees' bodies, but only leaves bruising, the manual explains.

It is not known whether the training manual has since been updated. Serco has repeatedly fought the release of similar documents, claiming other versions are not in the "public interest" and could cause commotion inside lockups.

The Age reported that the Immigration Department had modeled its policy on restricting media access to detention centres by consulting the United States' rules for Guantanamo Bay.

"Serco's training manual, complete with detailed instruction on the infliction of pain and carefully-split gender roles for staff, appears to be based on techniques for maintaining control inside prisons.”The Department of Immigration likes to say that detention centres are not prisons, or places of punishment, but Serco's manual clearly establishes exactly such a framework."

Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young was expected to read key sections of the training manual to Parliament. She said the guide taught guards to treat "vulnerable people as if they are prisoners, when they have broken no laws and are asserting their international right to seek asylum".

"There is nothing in this training manual to suggest anybody working on the ground in our detention centres has the skills necessary to deal with the specific needs of asylum seekers,". "All it does is teaching how to use force. Serco officers themselves have told the Immigration Detention Centre inquiry and their union that they are ill-equipped to deal with mental health issues and suicide prevention training.

The Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) has continued to back Serco and its methods. A department spokeswoman said that while DIAC did not approve Serco's training manual, since that was a matter for the company, it did assess very carefully during the tendering process for the government's $1billion contract "the capability, the experience and the culture" of the bidding companies.

There are presently three inquiries into deaths in immigration detention centres run by Serco in Australia. Serco's UK parent company was last year found responsible for the death of 14-year-old Adam Rickwood, who was staying at a UK youth training centre.

More asylum seekers in Australian hospitals

Australian doctors are increasingly treating asylum-seekers being held in immigration detention in the country's north, many suffering mental illness.

Darwin's major hospital is struggling to treat the large number of asylum seekers who have been traumatized by immigration detention, many asylum seekers have attempted suicide and some have to be admitted to the psychiatric ward.

The Northern Territory branch of the Australian Medical Association (AMA) said three to five detainees from Australian immigration Centre’s were being brought to hospitals every day, many with mental or recurring issues. "They are all complicated cases, because virtually all of them will have some mental health issue," said Dr Paul Bauert, president of the AMA.

Dr Paul Bauert Said "They are not straightforward (cases), there is a fair degree of mental illness and chronic anxiety with their representations. They often need interpreters which are hard to find. So the whole process... becomes compounded."

Bauert said while some cases clearly involved psychiatric illness, other asylum-seekers came with chest or abdominal pain which needed to be examined despite the often firm suspicion it related to mental health.

Dr Bauert says immigration health services are not helping. "One of the ways that's used in an effort to decrease the amount of presentations to the health staff at the detention Centre’s is the use of anti-depressants," he said.

"One gets the feeling that both Minister [Chris] Bowen and the Health Minister, Plibersek, really don't understand the health conditions of the Northern Territory population and certainly has no understanding of the amount of psychological stress that they are putting on these unfortunate people in detention." He says long-term drug use is putting the detainees at further risk.

Rights groups have long criticized Australia's policy of mandatory detention for asylum-seekers arriving by boat, under which many are kept at remote and isolated detention Centre’s which have been beset by unrest.

A spokesman for Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said the government was concerned about mental health in detention but noted that asylum-seekers had appropriate access to health facilities. "People in detention will be taken to Royal Darwin Hospital when they are medically assessed as requiring emergency or specialist health services for various health complaints," he added.

Rioters turned out to be refugees

New data shows most asylum seekers detained during the Christmas Island and Villawood riots were later found to be refugees.

Refugees involved are not allowed to leave detention because they are waiting to find out if they have been sentenced to jail terms for their involvement in the riots. If they are found to be guilty they will not be accepted into Australia, even though they are considered genuine refugees. Asylum-seekers must pass a character test to be allowed into Australia and if they get a criminal record it means that they will not be accepted.

A report into riots that broke out during March and April last year said 80 of 100 detainees involved in the Christmas Island riots had received initial rejections, and blamed the disturbances, and self-harm, on detainees ''receiving the wrong outcome in their eyes''.

The report's author, Allan Hawke, told a parliamentary committee last week: ''The conclusion we were coming to was that these were not genuine refugees and they were reacting to the fact that they had paid a people smuggler to come to Australia … [and] they were going to vent their anger on the system''.

The government has repeatedly blamed the riots on large numbers of detainees being on ''a negative pathway'', rather than detention conditions.

The Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young, has questioned Dr Hawke's findings. "These statistics prove that the government's rhetoric - that people who have been in detention long-term are not refugees and are on negative pathways - is simply not true. Most, in fact, are genuine refugees who have been unnecessarily detained for far too long while the government played politics with their lives,'' she said.

A spokesman for the Immigration Minister, Chris Bowen, said riot ringleaders still faced having refugee visas refused by the minister if they were sentenced.

Overall refugee approval data should not be linked to specific individuals involved in the riots, ''many of whom have been charged, remain on a negative pathway and are still subject to new tougher character requirements'', he said.

The Hawke inquiry ''made clear the incidents were largely the result of the frustrations of a group of people on a 'negative pathway' not being regarded as refugees,'' the spokesman said.

Death of Iranian asylum seeker in Australia`s detention

Current conditions in Australia`s detention centres are getting worse for asylum seekers, they are being detained for long periods of time and they not knowing when and if they will get accepted as refugees or will be deported back to their home country.

The period of detained asylum seekers witness self-harm, suicide and protests which causes more depression for them. Recently a 44-year-old Iranian man was transferred to hospital from Villawood detention centre with chest pains on Saturday 25th February but died early on Monday 27th February because of an apparent heart attack.

The Iranian man arrived in Australia by plane in April 2010 and was in detention since then. Papers had been lodged with the Iranian embassy for his deportation after his asylum claim had been repeatedly rejected, and the man, previously jailed by the Iranian regime and whose brother was executed, feared for his life.

Mr Ian Rintoul, the Head of the Refugee Action Coalition said the man had a wife and two children in Iran and a cousin in Australia. He said he had been living in Villawood's housing section for four weeks before being taken to hospital.

Dr Michael Dudley, the chairman of Suicide Prevention Australia, said the link between anxiety and heart disease was well known, and he had written a psychiatric assessment of the man, that clearly stated prolonged detention was worsening his depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

''He clearly had symptoms of panic, palpitations, sweating, neck and chest pain and was unable to sleep because of his worries. Every night he had nightmares of what would happen to his family. He had flashbacks to events in Iran, triggered by events at Villawood including federal police and riot squad raids on rooms,'' Dr Dudley said. ''His vulnerability was really compounded by his detention and the strong possibility of being deported to his death”

Dr Dudley`s report on the Iranian man had said he should be moved to community detention in line with department guidelines. The Australian Immigration Department refused the man's release into community detention, stating that two psychiatric assessments did not specify he could not be treated for his mental illness inside a detention centre.

Mohammad Sadeghphour, a member of Australian Supporters of Democracy in Iran, said: ''The Iranian regime didn't kill him, but unfortunately our government did.''

Mr Sadeghphour said ''When I saw him last week he was a different guy. He was so worried about his children and his wife. The Iranian community wrote letters to the Minister and detention centre management.''

He is the fifth Villawood detainee to die in 18 months. The previous four were suicides. An Immigration Department spokeswoman said the department expressed its sympathy to the man's family and would co-operate with any investigation.

There are currently 3,031 people in immigration detention centres around Australia. Almost a third has been in detention for more than a year. A new report by Amnesty International says conditions in detention centres are not good for asylum seekers. In fact, they have said the Australian Government should close the detention centres immediately.