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.

Call to close detention centre in Australia

The Darwin Asylum Seeker Support and Advocacy Network say there have been four attempted suicides at Australia's Northern Immigration Detention Centre in three weeks. The asylum seeker support group is calling on the Federal Government to immediately close the detention centre.

The network's spokeswoman, Fernanda Dahlstrom, says two Iranian men attempted suicide at the Darwin centre on Sunday morning.

Both men attempted to hang themselves in the same room at the same time before Serco staff removed them. After the men were taken to hospital, other asylum seekers in the centre commenced protests by chanting for their release from detention.

Fernanda Dahlstrom says both Iranian men were long-term detainees and she says they should have their asylum claims processed while living in the community.

"Waiting with uncertainty about their future, not able to have anything to occupy themselves to make themselves useful, just basically sitting around with nothing to do, separated from their families, and not knowing whether they have a future in this country," she said.

Ms Dahlstrom says the centre should be closed down.

In the past three weeks in Northern Immigration Detention Centre one man attempted to kill himself by swallowing a light bulb, one man attempted to hang himself with a shower curtain and there have been a number of hunger strikes. The centre saw dozens of suicide attempts throughout 2011.

Dahlstrom said: “Mandatory detention does not work. It does not stop desperate people coming to Australia seeking safety, it is expensive and inhumane. Asylum seekers should be taken out of these factories for mental illness and placed in the community."

The Immigration Department says the two detainees "threatened" self harm. It says the men were treated at Royal Darwin Hospital and have been returned to the centre. A spokesman says extra support staff have been assigned to take care of the detainees' mental health.

Asylum Seekers on their way to Australia in Indonesia

Indonesia has a strategic geographic location which makes it a desirable place of transit for Asylum seekers trying to reach Australia.

There are those who go straight to the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Central Jakarta, and file a request to be recognized as an asylum seeker or refugee. Thousands of asylum seekers looking to be refugees are sheltering in Indonesia; the years of waiting for placement to a third country is a tortuous affair. With only their words to go by and scant paperwork to back them up, most of these people are trying to find their way out of the suffering they experienced in home countries wracked by violence and oppression.

An ethnic Arab, Amir Mazraeh 54 years old (not his real name) fled from Iran with his family to escape what he says is the oppression and discriminatory treatment by the government there.

Amir Says “We’ve been waiting for years, and it’s been stressful because we can’t do anything besides think about our families and friends that we’ve left behind,”

Amir’s story is similar to that of hundreds of others who in recent years have flooded into Indonesia from Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Middle East as they seek to make their way, legally or otherwise, to Australia.

The Indonesian immigration office says that as of December last year, there were 3,980 illegal immigrants in the country (about 4,000, according to the UNHCR), of whom 3,011 were classified as asylum seekers and 969 refugees. Less than half, or 1,284, are housed at the government’s immigration detention centers in 13 cities across the country.

As of this month, there are at least 567 immigrants living in 42 houses, apartments, villas and hotels in Cisarua, according to the Bogor Immigration Office. In June last year, that figure was just 326, with most of the immigrants coming from Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Pakistan.

For those like Amir and fellow Iranian Yusuf (not his real name) and their families, who have been in Puncak since 2010, the wait has been anything but pleasant. Amir makes it clear what he wants after living in limbo here for the past year and a half: “I just can’t wait to leave.”

While some of the asylum seekers are luck to be supported by the government and are placed in communities until their status for refugee is determined. Other have to wait this long period in detention centres in Indonesia.

The conditions in Indonesian detention centres are not good, people are thrown together in small are without good health services. Recently an afghan asylum seeker was beaten to death at a detention centre in Kalimantan, Indonesia.

The 28-year-old Afghan man was among a group of five which escaped from the Pontianak detention centre. The chief detective in Pontianak, Puji Prayitno, says the men were recaptured and were healthy when they were returned to the centre. One of them, however, died the the next day and Mr Puji says the cause of death was trauma caused by a blunt object. Asylum seekers say a guard beat one of the would-be escapees and killed him. The 10 suspects, from a staff of 30, were in police custody. As of yesterday afternoon, charges had not been laid.

Commission spokesman Andrej Mahecic said "UNHCR is seriously troubled by the unclear turn of events that followed,”

With the tide of asylum seekers continuing to grow, the government is establishing a special office within the Coordinating Ministry for Political, Legal and Security Affairs to deal with the issues of illegal immigration and people smuggling.

The ministry hosted a high-level meeting at the end of January, attended by officials from the IOM, UNHCR, the Foreign Ministry, the Transportation Ministry, the military, the police and intelligence agencies.

The new office, which will help in monitoring, synchronizing and coordinating policy applications to prevent people smuggling and handle asylum seekers, will have its own intelligence unit.

The government has acknowledged the difficulty of the task ahead. “People smuggling and illegal migrants are complex issues,” says Maryoto, from the immigration directorate. “It’s not just about immigration. It’s also about human rights, international relations and national defense.”

Indonesia has still not ratified the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol. Indonesia also does not have a legal obligation to regulate standards on handling refugees. Thus the bad condition for refugees continues and there is no hop of any change in the future for asylum seekers.

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.