There are around 150 boys aged 14 to 17 currently locked up in the Darwin Airport Motel who have not left the building since April. These boys are almost all Hazaras, a persecuted minority who are being killed and driven out of Afghanistan by the Taliban. Many of these boys have seen their fathers and
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The Australian government maintains that it does not detain children in immigration detention centres (IDCs). Instead, children are detained in Alternative Places of Detention (APODs) which can be motels or mining camps which SERCO, a global security company, runs. The Asti Motel in Darwin is one such APOD, as are the Leonora Mining Camp, two
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On Wednesday morning a large group of asylum seekers walked out of the Darwin detention centre and stood quietly by the Stuart Highway holding up bed sheets so that passing cars could read such messages as “Give us mercy.” Pamela Curr, campaign co-ordinator, Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, was there: Like many small towns, Darwin leaks
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I often think everyone should ask themselves the basic question that I pose to myself each day: What would I do if I was fleeing for my life and trying to save my family? I know I would do whatever it took. I would get on a boat no matter how dangerous and would pay
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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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