Refugee processing to resume
By KIRSTEN LAWSON
The Canberra Times
The Government agreed yesterday to resume processing Afghan refugee applications as more than 200 hunger strikers at the Woomera Detention Centre faced their ninth day without food.
Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock's decision also came as welfare organisations warned there would soon be deaths at the South Australian facility after a number of suicide attempts overnight on Wednesday.
Refugee Action Collective of Australia president Cyrus Sarang claimed up to 20 asylum-seekers, including a 16-year-old boy, had simultaneously attempted suicide by hanging.
Yesterday's breakthrough follows the intervention of Mr Ruddock's independent advisory committee, chaired by former Liberal minister John Hodges, which visited the detainees on Tuesday and met Mr Ruddock in Canberra yesterday.
The Government put a freeze on processing applications last year after the Taliban regime was overthrown in Afghanistan, leaving the 240 Afghanis at Woomera in limbo and frustrated.
Their actions have become increasingly desperate during the hunger strike. Mr Ruddock said three inmates - including the 16-year-old boy - had attempted to hang themselves. Another 25 had poisoned themselves and 21 had mutilated themselves.
And by yesterday 212 detainees, including 34 children, had joined the strike, and 42 had sewn their lips together.
After Mr Ruddock called his independent advisory group in on Tuesday, the detainees agreed to move into the shade and start drinking water.
And after the group met Mr Ruddock yesterday, he announced that processing would recommence.
But he insisted he had not capitulated to the detainees' demands.
"We have not compromised the determination system at all," he said.
"We haven't been asked to compromise the determination system. We have certainly clarified some misunderstandings about the way in which it operates. And anything that portrays it as being anything different would, I think, be a misreport of what's been said today."
The Government had not been able to finalise applications during uncertainty in Afghanistan.
However, it had new information about the situation which made it possible to resume processing.
"What we're saying is we are now in a position with the information we have obtained to put those matters before detainees," he said. ". . . We are in a position to recommence that process."
Asked what information the department now had, Mr Ruddock said those who had feared being conscripted by the Taliban no longer had a refugee claim and would be invited to put a new case or have their applications rejected.
Welcoming yesterday's decision, Mr Hodges said the detainees had been frustrated that their applications had been in limbo.
"If you had been in our position and listened to their comments early, their frustrations, I think you'd agree that just small changes would be acceptable to them," Mr Hodges, who returns to Woomera this morning, said.
Lawyer Paul Boylan said it was great to see progress but the Government must speed up processing significantly.
"It [the decision] may very well help . . . but just an announcement that we're going to start doing what we shouldn't have stopped doing in the first place isn't much is it?" he said.
Also yesterday, five unaccompanied children the Government said were at risk of being abused by adult detainees, were taken to foster care in Adelaide.
Democrats Leader Natasha Stott Despoja visited Woomera yesterday. She was initially denied access but was allowed in after being invited by a detainee. She is believed to be the first non-government leader to get in, and described the centre as a "hell hole".
Two officers from the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission were on the scene yesterday, assessing conditions at the centre and checking whether Australia was complying with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
They will report to Human Rights Commissioner Sev Ozdowski, who has said he is deeply concerned about the children's vulnerability and the long-term affects of the protest on them.
And church and welfare groups urged Mr Ruddock to release all families, and single detainees not considered a threat, offering to support them with accommodation in the community.
Mr Ruddock continued his refusal to detail the costs of the Government's "Pacific solution" for boat people.
The ABC reported before Christmas that it would reach $500 million and the Sydney Morning Herald reported yesterday that the Government had spent $285 million and was budgeting $200 million a year for five years.