Tell them it wont work Ruddock
By Andrew Clennell Sydney Morning Herald
The Federal Government said yesterday that it would investigate sending community representatives to Woomera to "reason" with detainees who have stitched their lips and remain on a hunger strike.
Of the more than 180 Afghan asylum seekers - including 30 children - 62 had stitched lips as the protest aimed at getting the Government to begin releasing Afghans moved into its sixth day.
A child was also under observation at Woomera hospital yesterday after swallowing disinfectant as part of the protest.
In February 2000, an Iraqi medical scientist, Mohammed Taha Alsalami, now a member of the minister's immigration detention advisory group, travelled to the Curtin centre at the request of the immigration department, to convince between 12 and 20 men to unstitch their lips.
Dr Alsalami, a founding member of the Organisation for Human Rights in Iraq, said yesterday that he had been able to convince those people to unstitch their mouths within "half an hour" of meeting them by telling them their actions did no good.
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That action was part of a similar hunger strike to that at Woomera - the trigger being frustration with slow visa processing.
The shortest time any detainee has spent at Woomera now is five months.
The Immigration Minister, Philip Ruddock, contacted the head of his immigration detention advisory group, John Hodges, a former immigration minister, yesterday.
He said he was "inviting" the committee "to see if community representatives are able to play a role in certainly reasoning with the people that in an Australian context behaviour of this sort will not ... produce altered decisions.''
The minister would not say when a visit to Woomera might occur, but the group was understood to be discussing it yesterday.
Mr Ruddock's decision followed Opposition calls for independent medical observers to be sent to Woomera.
The Human Rights Commissioner, Sev Ozdowski, said he would ask the Government if he could travel to Woomera as soon as possible to investigate the effects on children there.
Dr Ozdowski is conducting a national inquiry into children in immigration detention.
Also yesterday, one day after Mr Ruddock had said if people had a problem with being in detention, they could return to Afghanistan, his department and office confirmed there was no way of returning people yet.
"I can confirm a small number of Afghan detainees have indicated a desire to leave Australia," an immigration department spokeswoman said. "[They] either have or are obtaining a certificate of identity issued by the Australian authorities.
"The department understands the individuals are seeking visas from a range of countries adjacent to Afghanistan and we will assist their return should they be successful in obtaining a visa for that particular country."
A spokesman for Mr Ruddock said one problem was there was there were no travel documents for people wanting to return directly to Afghanistan.
The spokesman said the needles used for sewing lips had been given to detainees to mend clothes and for craft classes.
There was further asylum seeker unrest at Curtin detention centre where detainees lit fires and called for Sri Lankans to be removed from the centre, the Government said, after three Sri Lankan men were accused of molesting two young boys.