Refugee protest escalates
From AAP
19jan02
A PROTEST at Woomera detention centre has escalated, with more detainees sewing their lips together and 140 people participating in a hunger strike.
An Immigration Department spokeswoman said the number of people who have sewn their lips together had increased from 58 to 70.
"It also appears that everyone involved in this activity are Afghanis," she said.
The protest is believed to have been sparked by the rejection of a huge number of applications and the time taken to process applications at the South Australian centre.
But Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock warned the detainees their action would not affect the outcome of their asylum applications.
"Lip sewing is a practice unknown in our culture," he told ABC radio.
"We've seen it before amongst detainees and it's something that offends the sensitivities of Australians and they (the protesters) believe it might influence the way we might respond.
"This argument about desperation is run all the time in relation to every aspect of the movement of people unlawfully, and people who have an immigration outcome in mind and who are rejected behave in ways which we find unacceptable.
"They believe it will influence decisions. It can't and it won't."
Despite the protest being in its third day, it was quiet at the centre last night, the immigration spokeswoman said.
"It was a quiet night last night and everything is happening today as normal," she said.
"(They are) processing as normal, lawyers are going into the centre as normal, everything is fairly quiet."
One security guard was struck in the head with a rock while trying to assist some of the asylum seekers during the latest protest, immigration officials said.
This week's incidents follow three days of riots last month in which two asylum seekers mutilated themselves, 21 security guards were injured and 21 buildings damaged by fire, causing an estimated $2 million worth of damage.
The fracas followed similar unrest in the month, when buildings were damaged by fire.
In November, about 250 of the more than 1,100 detainees at the centre rioted and also damaged buildings, causing about $140,000 worth of damage.