Vol. 78/No. 41      November 17, 2014

Since July 2013 asylum seekers reaching Australia by boat — many from Iraq and Afghanistan — have been sent to prisons on Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island or the Pacific Island of Nauru. Those who arrived before then are being held in detention centers on Christmas Island, an Australian territory in the Indian Ocean, and other prisons in remote areas of Australia.

“Australia has helped cause the situation they are fleeing from and has an obligation to take people in,” said Geoffrey Norman, a young factory worker from western Sydney who joined the protest.

Reza Barati, a 23-year-old Kurd from Iran, was killed at the Australian-run Manus Island detention center Feb. 17 after prison guards and Papua New Guinea police assaulted refugees demanding approval of their asylum claims. Sixty-two refugees were injured.

In September Hamid Khazayi, 24, from Iran died on Manus Island from an infected foot. His death was the result of “the shocking conditions and medical neglect on Manus Island,” Ian Rintoul, spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition, told SBS News.

Some 600 people broke out of the family detention compound at Nauru Oct. 10 after being told they would be transferred to Cambodia.

In July, 157 Tamils were held for weeks on an Australian customs boat in the Indian Ocean, while Australian officials tried to convince the Indian government to take them. They were eventually transferred to the jail on Nauru.  
 
 
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