The protests of 88 Afghan men yesterday at the Darwin Immigration Detention Centre was a symbol of an immigration system that continues to fail asylum seekers. The fact that these men were denied water for 8 hours as they peacefully protested in blistering heat as a negotiation tactic of the Department of Immigration is telling.
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As of the 25th of June 2010, there were 4116 people in immigration detention. This included 1662 in immigration detention on the mainland and 2454 in immigration detention on Christmas Island. Of the total people in immigration detention, there were 566 children being detained. Five-hundred and seventy five of all individuals had been in detention
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As part of its 2010 immigration election platform, the Liberal Party announced that it would reintroduce the ‘45-day rule’ for onshore protection applicants. The 45-day rule (which came into force in 1997 and subsequently abolished by the Labor Party in 2007) required asylum seekers who had arrived in the country legally by plane and on
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Tony Abbott has promised that if elected, placing a phone call to the president of Nauru would be a first-day priority and that the tiny island’s detention centres would be reopened in a matter of weeks. Shadow immigration spokesman Scott Morrison may be asking Mr. Abbott to reconsider this timeline after his inspection of the
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We are continuously bombarded with endless political plans on how to get tough on asylum seekers and how stop people seeking asylum. Whether it’s the ill-thought out and illegal turning back of the boats or the offshore processing of asylum seekers, each major political party seems hell bent on finding new ways of detaining or denying asylum seekers their most basic human rights.
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