Australian Detention Center Crisis Worsens

By: Steven | Posted: 20th October 2010

It seems that the issue with regards to Australia immigration centers are far from over. After the incident that occurred in an immigration detention center in the city of Darwin earlier last month, several more incidents occur at other centers these past few weeks. And authorities are now trying to resolve these cases.
It can be recalled that around a hundred Indonesian detainees staged a riot in the Northern Immigration Detention Center in Darwin last Aug. 30. A day after that, on Sept. 1, a group of around 90 Afghans, also detained at the center, broke out of their holding rooms and also staged a protest. Both groups were protesting their alleged illegal detention.
An earlier incident took place last April, when five Iraqi detainees staged a hunger strike at the Christmas Island Immigration Center. The detainees were protesting the delays in their application for asylum. They were also fearful that their applications might be suspended, after processing for Afghan and Sri Lankan refugees were suspended earlier that month. The Christmas Island center is one of the two remaining offshore processing centers in the county (the other is located at the Cocos Island).
The latest incidents concerning immigration center detainees occurred at the Villawood center in Sydney. The protests begun when a group of mostly Sri Lankan detainees took to the roof of one of the buildings in the center last Sept. 17 and stayed there for more than 30 hours. The group were later convinced by authorities to stand down.
However, another group of detainees followed suit a few hours later. This time around, nine Chinese nationals, one of whom is pregnant, also took to the centers roof, and stayed there for several hours. Earlier, a Fijian woman jumped from the top of one of the buildings in front a crowd of horrified onlookers.
According to Australian immigration law, those who are caught entering Australian territories without a visa are automatically arrested and detained to any of several centers in the country prior to the hearing of their case. However, this policy has been highly criticized by several groups as being unjust. They also argued that, with the slow processing times (some detainees have been in the centers for several years now) congestion is a big problem here that needs to be resolved.
The series of protest of inmates served as a wake up call for the Australian government. Authorities are now trying to come up with solutions to hasten the processing of refugee application. However, it is unlikely that a good setup will be delivered anytime soon. And for refugees, this would be another long waiting game.


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Tags: onlookers, riot, asylum, cou