Australian Immigration Officers bully detainees

Transcript

The Refugee Action Coalition says a hunger strike by asylum seekers at Australia's detention centre in Papua New Guinea ended after intimidation from Australian immigration staff.

Seven detainees had sewn their lips shut, as more than 250 of them took part in the hunger strike in a protest at Australia's Manus Island camp last Wednesday.

The Coalition's Ian Rintoul told Indira Moala immigration officials warned the asylum seekers that their refugees claims would not be processed if they continued to protest.

IAN RINTOUL: There's a lot of intimidation on Manus Island at the moment and so the people who were on hunger strike were visited by their Immigration Officers and warned that if they maintained any kind of protest, there'd be nothing happening with their processing. That was really the consequences. They visited everybody individually and ended up intimidating them.

INDIRA MOALA: Would you say the tensions are rising even more in the centre since the February riots?

IR: I think the tensions are as bad as ever. Yeah I think it is fair to say that the tensions are rising. They've never gone away since February. And now that there is some talk of housing people that are found to be refugees outside of the centre, the fears of more attacks have actually increased. It's very clear that outside of the detention centre, the refugees are going to be even more vulnerable to attack and the authorities on Manus Island said that if they are housed outside the detention centre, there will be no security. So people remain extremely fearful and remain very vulnerable to hostility from the locals.

IM: Would you expect another fatal incident by the way things have been going all year?

IR: I think it is very likely that if people are housed outside the detention centre there will inevitably be another fatality. If there isn't a secure facility, then it's simply a matter of time. People are going to be very vulnerable in any case. But people who are inside the detention centre still don't feel safe. And part of the hunger strike that was happening was directed at that whole issue - that they remain completely vulnerable to the locals.

IM: What about the announcement of the Maritime Migration Powers Legislation Amendment Bill last week, Australia now no longer being obliged to adhere to the U.N. Refugee Convention, how do the Asylum seekers feel about that? Do they understand exactly what that means?

IR: They do understand that. I think the thing that impacts most strongly on the people of Manus and Nauru is the arbitrary way that they've been treated. They were randomly or arbitrarily selected to be sent to Manus Island or Nauru from the grouping of people who arrived at Christmas Island. They've suffered enormous hardships and appalling conditions on Manus and Nauru since July last year. And now the government has quite arbitrarily, having pushed through this bill said that the people who were not sent to Manus Island and Nauru are now going to be subject to processing in Australia and will be able to access temporary protection visas. But for the people of Manus Island and Nauru, are not going to get any temporary protection visas. They've got no security on Manus Island or PNG and they're now, according to the government, entirely excluded from Australia. The unfairness or discriminatory aspect of that weighs very heavily on the Asylum Seekers in Nauru and Manus Island.