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UPDATE (AUSTRALIA) : Asylum seekers have accused government of hiding the truth; hunger strike continues

May 29, 2001

UPDATE ON URGENT APPEAL UPDATE ON URGENT APPEAL UPADTE URGENT APPEAL

ASIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION - URGENT APPEALS PROGRAM

Update on Urgent Appeal 30 May 2001
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UP-08-2001 (RE: UA-17-2001): Twenty-two detainees arrested and hunger strike

UPDATE : Asylum seekers have accused government of hiding the truth; hunger strike continues
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Dear Friends,

We're sending you following update regarding twenty-two detainees who were arrested and on hunger strike at Port Hedland in Australia.

Asylum seekers have accused Australian government of hiding the truth and insisted that they are being kept incommunicado. Meanwhile, around 130 people are still on hunger strike.

We will send you further updates if any to draw your attention and for solidarity action.

Thank you.

Urgent Appeals Desk
Asian Human Rights Commission

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A statement signed by more than 150 asylum seekers in Australia's Port Hedland detention centre has called on the government to tell the truth about the protests at Port Hedland.

"Why has only a part of the video tape of the protests been shown on television?" they ask in the statement. "The government is hiding the truth." They call for a thorough investigation of the events at Port Hedland, rather than a trial by the release of selective video tape. "Why don't they show the tape of what ACM did to us?" they ask. ACM is the company running the detention centre, which is a private facility, on contract to the government.

The statement also calls for the dropping of the charges against the 22 arrested in police raids last Saturday. "They are innocent", the statement says.

The statement confirms that the trouble began over the strike in the kitchen and an attack by ACM guards on two teenage boys: "If you want the truth, it was ACM that lit the match at Port Hedland." According to the statement, ACM provoked events by starting the engine on the water cannon, and dressed in riot gear attacked groups of detainees. "We stood with women and children in the middle, to protect them from the batons of ACM," they say.

The statement continues, "The ACM is creating hatred in the detention centres. They humiliate us, they discriminate against us. They put us in chains."

"What have we done?" they ask. "We are human beings, with feelings. What have we done to this country to be treated this way? We faced persecution and distress and came seeking protection. But we do not get protection, but more stress and punishment." Conditions in Port Hedland are at breaking point they say. In a phone conversation, one detainee said, "The police and ACM act like Nazis. We have never seen anything like it, even in Iran or Afghanistan."

The statement ends with a call to the courts to recognise the innocence of those charged.

Meanwhile the hunger strike at Port Hedland continues. In a move that threatens to inflame the situation, another 15 people have been singled out by police for their participation in the protests. Around 130 people are still on hunger strike protest. Detainees have rejected the suggestion by immigration minister Philip Ruddock that children are being coerced to join the hunger strike.

"Families have been placed in desperate circumstances by the minister, and feel they are left with no choice. They want to stay and fight this together. It is the minister who has divided families here," one detainee told the Refugee Action Collective in Sydney.

"The government is hiding the truth in more ways than one," said Ian Rintoul, from the Refugee Action Collective in Sydney. "If minister Ruddock wants the truth to be known about what's happening at Port Hedland, why are the detainees being kept incommunicado?"

Protests are expected in Port Hedland and other detention centres to co-incide with the national day of action which will see major rallies in all capital cities this Sunday, 3 June.




*** Please send a copy of your letter to AHRC Urgent Appeals:
Email:
Fax: +(852) - 26986367

Please contact the Urgent Appeals coordinator if you require more
information or wish to report human rights violations.
===========================================================
AHRC Urgent Appeals Programme
Asian Human Rights Commission
Unit D, 7th Floor, Mongkok Commercial Centre,
16 - 16B Argyle Street, Kowloon, HONGKONG
Tel: +(852) - 2698-6339
Fax: +(852) - 2698-6367
E-mail: ua@ahrchk.org

Please contact the AHRC Urgent Appeals Coordinator if you require
further information or to make requests for further appeals.

Document Type :
Urgent Appeal Update
Document ID :
UP-08-2001
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Extended Introduction: Urgent Appeals, theory and practice

A need for dialogue

Many people across Asia are frustrated by the widespread lack of respect for human rights in their countries.  Some may be unhappy about the limitations on the freedom of expression or restrictions on privacy, while some are affected by police brutality and military killings.  Many others are frustrated with the absence of rights on labour issues, the environment, gender and the like. 

Yet the expression of this frustration tends to stay firmly in the private sphere.  People complain among friends and family and within their social circles, but often on a low profile basis. This kind of public discourse is not usually an effective measure of the situation in a country because it is so hard to monitor. 

Though the media may cover the issues in a broad manner they rarely broadcast the private fears and anxieties of the average person.  And along with censorship – a common blight in Asia – there is also often a conscious attempt in the media to reflect a positive or at least sober mood at home, where expressions of domestic malcontent are discouraged as unfashionably unpatriotic. Talking about issues like torture is rarely encouraged in the public realm.

There may also be unwritten, possibly unconscious social taboos that stop the public reflection of private grievances.  Where authoritarian control is tight, sophisticated strategies are put into play by equally sophisticated media practices to keep complaints out of the public space, sometimes very subtly.  In other places an inner consensus is influenced by the privileged section of a society, which can control social expression of those less fortunate.  Moral and ethical qualms can also be an obstacle.

In this way, causes for complaint go unaddressed, un-discussed and unresolved and oppression in its many forms, self perpetuates.  For any action to arise out of private frustration, people need ways to get these issues into the public sphere.

Changing society

In the past bridging this gap was a formidable task; it relied on channels of public expression that required money and were therefore controlled by investors.  Printing presses were expensive, which blocked the gate to expression to anyone without money.  Except in times of revolution the media in Asia has tended to serve the well-off and sideline or misrepresent the poor.

Still, thanks to the IT revolution it is now possible to communicate with large audiences at little cost.  In this situation there is a real avenue for taking issues from private to public, regardless of the class or caste of the individual.

Practical action

The AHRC Urgent Appeals system was created to give a voice to those affected by human rights violations, and by doing so, to create a network of support and open avenues for action.  If X’s freedom of expression is denied, if Y is tortured by someone in power or if Z finds his or her labour rights abused, the incident can be swiftly and effectively broadcast and dealt with. The resulting solidarity can lead to action, resolution and change. And as more people understand their rights and follow suit, as the human rights consciousness grows, change happens faster. The Internet has become one of the human rights community’s most powerful tools.   

At the core of the Urgent Appeals Program is the recording of human rights violations at a grass roots level with objectivity, sympathy and competence. Our information is firstly gathered on the ground, close to the victim of the violation, and is then broadcast by a team of advocates, who can apply decades of experience in the field and a working knowledge of the international human rights arena. The flow of information – due to domestic restrictions – often goes from the source and out to the international community via our program, which then builds a pressure for action that steadily makes its way back to the source through his or her own government.   However these cases in bulk create a narrative – and this is most important aspect of our program. As noted by Sri Lankan human rights lawyer and director of the Asian Human Rights Commission, Basil Fernando:

"The urgent appeal introduces narrative as the driving force for social change. This idea was well expressed in the film Amistad, regarding the issue of slavery. The old man in the film, former president and lawyer, states that to resolve this historical problem it is very essential to know the narrative of the people. It was on this basis that a court case is conducted later. The AHRC establishes the narrative of human rights violations through the urgent appeals. If the narrative is right, the organisation will be doing all right."

Patterns start to emerge as violations are documented across the continent, allowing us to take a more authoritative, systemic response, and to pinpoint the systems within each country that are breaking down. This way we are able to discover and explain why and how violations take place, and how they can most effectively be addressed. On this path, larger audiences have opened up to us and become involved: international NGOs and think tanks, national human rights commissions and United Nations bodies.  The program and its coordinators have become a well-used tool for the international media and for human rights education programs. All this helps pave the way for radical reforms to improve, protect and to promote human rights in the region.