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.

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.

Boat Arrivals, Australia and Human Rights

Australia’s policy of imprisoning all asylum seekers who travel to Australia by boat has been strongly criticized by human rights supporters. During a visit to Australia in May 2011 the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, urged the Australian Government to end the mandatory detention policy. Amnesty International has repeatedly condemned the policy, saying Australia needs to do more to protect the rights of asylum seekers and refugees. Despite this, it is unlikely that the policy of mandatory detention will be changed.

Partly responding to the criticism of human rights campaigners, the Australian Government announced that asylum seekers arriving by boat could be granted Bridging Visas in November 2011. The Bridging Visas would allow asylum seekers to live in the community while their applications for refugee status were decided. According to the Immigration Department, however, bridging visas are granted on a case by case basis and priority is given to the most vulnerable and those who have been in detention for a long time. The behavior of asylum seekers in detention is also taken into account. Since November only 107 asylum seekers have been let out of detention on bridging visas and 4,409 people remain locked up.

The possibility of Bridging Visas for asylum seekers arriving by boat is a step towards a more gentle response to boat arrivals but it does not mean the end of compulsory detention. Historically, Australia’s policies towards boat arrivals have got harsher when the number of people arriving by boat increases. Mandatory detention laws were introduced in Australia in 1992 by the then Labor government in response to the increasing numbers of asylum seekers from Vietnam, China, and Cambodia trying to reach Australia by boat. The law said that Australian Courts were not allowed to review the decision to detain asylum seekers but said that they could not be detained for longer than 273 (approximately nine months). In 1994 the same government changed the law again, making it even harsher by ruling that mandatory detention could last indefinitely for anyone who came to Australia by boat without a valid visa.

In 2001, in response to the increasing numbers of asylum seekers arriving by boat, the then Liberal Government (led by John Howard) introduced the Pacific Solution. Before 2001, the highest number of asylum seekers boats to arrive in Australia was 19, carrying a total of 660 asylum seekers. In 2001, 43 boats arrived carrying 5,516 asylum seekers. Responding to this increase, the Australian government declared that the Australian islands between Indonesia and the Australian mainland were no longer part of Australia’s migration zone and all asylum seekers arriving by boat would be taken to a detention centre on the tiny island of Nauru. Many of the asylum seekers in Nauru were detained for years. The number of boats arriving dropped dramatically.

In 2008, the newly elected Labor government (this time led by Kevin Rudd) announced that it was ending the Pacific Solution but that some aspects of the detention system would stay the same. Asylum seekers arriving by boat would still have their refugee status determined offshore (on Christmas Island) but they would be let out of detention faster. In October 2010, the new Labor Prime Minister, Julia Gillard said that more changes would be made to the policy so that children and families could stay in community-based accommodation instead of the detention centre. However, since 2008, the number of boats arriving has steadily increased. In 2010 134 boats carried 6,879 asylum seekers to Australia.

Because the numbers of asylum seekers have increased so dramatically, it is likely that mandatory detention will continue to be used as a deterrent. Both of the major political parties in Australia remain convinced of the need for offshore processing and are just debating about where it will take place. The detention center in Nauru is one of the options being discussed. Amnesty International has said that the prospect of reopening Nauru is “horrifying” because “asylum seekers were locked up for years, away from lawyers, media, human rights advocates and community support. They were often not given proper information about what was happening and what rights they had.” Amnesty believes that there is a declining respect for the human rights of asylum seekers in Australia.