Ruddock denies babys lips sewn together

Sydney Morning Herald

Claims that a baby and three teenage boys had their lips sewn together in protest against conditions at Woomera detention centre were today denied by Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock.

He said no children at the centre had sewn their lips together - despite a spokewoman for his department saying last night that three Afghan boys, aged 13, 14 and 15, became dehydrated and were taken from the centre at the weekend to have stitches removed from their mouths. Mr Ruddock warned that children coerced into joining the protests may be separated from their parents.

About 70 Afghan asylum seekers have sewn their lips together, while 15 others were reported to have attempted suicide by swallowing detergent, and another 140 people are participating in a hunger strike

Marion Le, of the Independent Council for Refugee Advocacy, said a reliable source had told her that the lips of a baby, whose age was not known, had been sewn together.

"This man, when I was being told this, was weeping," she told radio 3AW. He said he had been told that an eight-year-old boy that he knew had sewn his own lips together.

"When he saw the baby he yelled and said: 'Nobody can tell me that baby put the stitches in the mouth' and they turned around and said: 'No, it's the older brothers and sisters'.

"This situation is now so bad, no child should be in a detention centre, full stop, for any period longer than two or three days."

Detainees at the South Australian centre have said their protest concerned human rights issues and was not about visas. The protest is now in its sixth day.

Mr Ruddock today said the federal government would discuss with relevant state authorities the possibility of removing some children from the care of their parents.

Such action might be taken in cases "where parents may not be fulfilling their proper obligations as parents to their children", he told ABC Radio.

"If parents are behaving in ways that put the lives of children at risk, we have some responsibility to act," Mr Ruddock said.

Democrats Senator Andrew Bartlett reiterated his party's call for Mr Ruddock to resign over the continuing trouble at detention facilities.

"Solely in terms of detention centres, if he was a prisons minister in any of the state governments around the country and had this level of disturbance in his institutions over the course of a year ... any other prisons minister would be long gone," he said.

In rejecting the call, Mr Ruddock said the protests occurred because of the relative freedom of detention centres.

"There are a whole range of mechanisms that are used in penal institutions which we can't use ... I think it's quite unreasonable to liken the detention environment to jails."

The past 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.

That fracas followed similar unrest earlier in the month, when buildings were damaged by fire.

In November, about 250 of the more than 1,100 detainees at Woomera rioted and also damaged buildings, causing about $140,000 worth of damage.