Riots over Australia’s immigrant crackdown
Refugees escape and destroy detention facility on island
BUILDINGS were razed as hundreds of asylum seekers escaped detention during riots at an Australian refugee facility on Nauru, witnesses said yesterday. This follows the launch of a hardline immigration crackdown, which has been described as inhumane.
Australia announced on Friday that boat people would no longer be resettled in the country and all future unauthorised arrivals would be sent to poverty-stricken Papua New Guinea for permanent resettlement. The move drew criticism and provoked protests throughout the country.
The riots on Friday night saw detainees take control of the immigration-processing centre on the remote Pacific atoll of Nauru and arm themselves with makeshift weapons.
Nearly half of the facility’s 545 asylum seekers escaped and a number of buildings were set alight, according to local photographer Clint Deidenang.
“Today was history. The biggest riot ever to be staged on Nauru soil. The most violence I’ve seen. Amazing support from locals to the police,” he wrote on Twitter, estimating that 95% of the centre’s buildings had been razed.
“I can see workers in orange shirts going through the war zone-like wreckage of burned and twisted tin houses. Destructive sight.”
The asylum seekers abandoned their four-hour protest after locals descended on the centre armed with pipes and machetes to help authorities to contain the violence in response to a government call for as- sistance, he added.
Facing growing political pressure over the arrival of asylum seekers, Kevin Rudd, the Australian prime minister, said he had taken a “very hard-line decision” and that all boat arrivals would now be sent to Papua New Guinea and processed at a remote detention centre on Manus Island.
Those found to be legitimate refugees would be resettled in Papua New Guinea, but those denied refugee status would be
It is a policy that penalises the most vulnerable because people don’t really flee by boat from choice. They flee because of some terror in their country
sent back to their own nations or to a third country.
Australia will expand the island centre from a capacity of 600 to 3 000. The centre has been criticised by the UN and aid groups, who say it is cramped, unhygienic and inhumane.
Rudd is under intense political pressure to stem the flow of asylum seekers, who have been arriving on leaky, unsafe boats from Indonesia.
Most of the recent arrivals originate from Iran, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan. More than 17 000 asylum seekers arrived in Australia in 2012 on almost 300 boats, and about 13 000 have already arrived this year.
“Australians have had enough of seeing people drowning in our waters ,” Rudd said.
Malcolm Fraser, a former Liberal prime minister, said the policy was inhumane and punished asylum seekers.
“It is a policy that penalises the most vulnerable of all the refugees, because people don’t really flee by boat from choice. They flee because of some terror in their country of origin.
“To say that Australia will not assist such people under any circumstances is a substantial statement — it’s a change of Australia’s values,” he said.
Rudd, who deposed Julia Gillard as Labour leader and prime minister last month, has been repeatedly attacked by the opposition as soft on refugees. —©