My article on asylum seekers and the dehumanising conditions within Australian immigration detention centres, published on The Scavenger: "Detention dehumanises asylum seekers".
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Detention dehumanises asylum seekers
09 April 2011
Increasing
rates of self-harm and a recent spate of suicides reveal a troubling picture of
Australian immigration detention centres. Deteriorating conditions are taking
their toll on asylum seekers, yet the Australian government is persisting with
its policy of mandatory detention. Susannah Waters speaks to some people at the
heart of the issue, and discovers the extent to which asylum seekers are
dehumanised by the system.
Stepping
off the plane, Mohsen Soltany was confused – he didn’t think the weather in the
United Kingdom would be this hot. Baffled, he questioned the immigration
officer.
“UK?”.
No – not the UK. He was in Perth. Perth, Australia.
Soltany
arrived in Australia in 1999 via Malaysia – or Singapore, he’s not sure – on a
journey which started in Iran and traced through Turkey. People smugglers
arranged his flight to Perth, a city Soltany had no knowledge of before his
arrival.
Not
that he would get the opportunity to acquaint himself: after declaring himself
a refugee, Soltany was transported directly to Perth Detention Centre. His next
four years were spent behind the razor wire in various Australian immigration detention
centres.
Staying
in Iran wasn’t an option. Soltany loves his country, but firmly believes he
faced certain death after trying to expose government corruption.
Through his work, Soltany - then a politically active man
in his late twenties - was exposed to the corrupt dealings of the government,
and was also privy to information about Iran’s infamous chain murders. After
penning an anonymous letter to a newspaper condemning the government, Soltany’s
house was searched by officials. Although not home at the time, he tells The
Scavenger “I knew I had to leave”.
While
Soltany’s unplanned arrival in Australia is symbolic of the vulnerability of
asylum seekers, it is perhaps also illustrative of how government policy –
however strict – cannot deter people from fleeing danger and seeking refuge
here. Most of those people, like Soltany, will arrive by plane.
And
many will spend months, even years, in detention centres.
Ian
Rintoul first knew Soltany as a name in Villawood Detention Centre. Rintoul
makes it his business to know who is behind the razor wire: he is spokesperson
for the Refugee Action Coalition, the group at the epicentre of Sydney’s
refugee campaign. The 57-year-old’s involvement in refugee issues stretches
back to the early 1990s, but he pinpoints the Howard era and rise of Pauline
Hanson as pivotal to his participation in the movement.
When
he claims that in recent years government policies on asylum seekers have both
“improved and worsened”, his laugh
reveals the irony is not lost on him.
“While
superficial characteristics and administrative things have changed, the
fundamental underpinnings of the refugee issues in Australia haven’t changed”,
Rintoul tells The Scavenger. He believes that Gillard government strategies -
such as mandatory detention, “stopping the boats”, and regional processing
centres - mean “we’re back with all the essentials of the policies we had under
the Howard government”.
Rintoul
considers the “absolute punitive quality” of detention as one of the worst
aspects of asylum seeker policy. Approximately 6,660 people are currently held in Australian
immigration detention. Rintoul cites overcrowding, lack of services, and social
isolation as instrumental to the self-harm and mental health problems within
the detention centres.
Amnesty
International has also criticised the conditions in detention centres, deeming them
“unacceptable”. The organisation recently inspected several Australian
detention centres and reported that detainees are “at grave risk of self-harm and mental illness”. It claims that conditions are deteriorating
to a point where attempted suicides are on the increase.
Of
particular concern are conditions at Christmas Island Immigration Detention Centre,
where stays are lengthy and self-harm is increasing. More than a third of all people in Australian immigration
detention live on Christmas Island.
27-year-old
student Rachel Connor* has been to Christmas Island. As a volunteer English
teacher at the detention centre for six weeks last year, she witnessed the
fragile mental state of many of the detainees.
“The truth is that almost all of the refugees
suffered from some form of mental disturbance from being in the centres, as
well as the complex history of trauma they carry from previous experience”, Connor
tells The Scavenger. She outlines
some of the restrictions placed on the detained asylum seekers, such as “timed
and monitored” recreation time. She says that detainees are not free to come
and go, and that parts of the facility seem “like a prison”.
Nevertheless, Connor believes her English classes had a direct
benefit on the asylum seekers, as she says the routine task of practicing the
language gave them a focus, “in a context where every day feels the same
without progress. Myself and many of the other teachers knew that a lot of our
students would not wake up in the morning if it weren’t for our classes”.
Connor says that her students told her it was the
only thing they looked forward to in the day.
Soltany’s four years in detention were spent divided
between Perth, Port Hedland and Villawood detention centres. Sipping tea in his inner city lounge
room crammed with musical instruments, the now 40-year-old musician and poet
contemplates the years he lost. Soltany wavers between calm reflection and
palpable anger. At times his rage spills over and projects him off his seat.
His brow furrows as his voice rises, and his gaze fixes on a point somewhere
else – somewhere beyond the room.
“I
went very mental”, he admits. “They’re not respecting very basic human rights
in detention”. Contacting the media and attempting to speak out about the
conditions became a constant undertaking for Soltany. “Any channel that we
could get the numbers, I would tell them - this is happening, we are on hunger
strike, people here stitched their lips. I told them what was happening”, he
says.
He
witnessed and experienced bashings and was also placed in isolation. Released
from detention in 2003, Soltany now possesses permanent residency. He is in
regular contact with many detainees in the centres, and says the conditions are
“still bad”.
But
Soltany is adamant that the worst feature of detention is the uncertainty.
“You
don’t know what will happen, that is the worst part. And you don’t know any day
they can come to deport you – that is when people get stressed”, he says. “All
the people going to the top of the roof and doing all this stuff, because they
think maybe tomorrow… That makes them stressed”.
Rintoul
agrees that the indefinite aspect of detention deeply affects asylum seekers. And
so does the terminology often used to refer to them.
According
to those who work with refugees, and to refugees themselves, terms such as “boat
people” and “illegals” are not only misleading but also have a directly harmful
effect. Nevertheless, these terms are common in the public domain - despite the
fact that over 95% of asylum seekers travel to Australia
by plane, and as Connor points out, “there is nothing illegal about seeking
asylum”.
Research shows that the terminology does have
an effect on public opinion: most people believe that the majority of asylum
seekers arrive via boat.
Gode
Mfashingabo works at refugee support centre the NSW
Service for the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture and Trauma Survivors (STARTTS). The 30-year-old works with
refugee youth and believes that these terms have become common as they are
“much easier and more provocative to use than any other words”. Mfashingabo
says that the media and politicians will use “whatever words necessary to
destabilise and drive their point across”.
Soltany
says that this terminology “absolutely” has a direct effect on refugees, and
that it “hurts deeply - a lot”. He explains that as an asylum seeker he was
variously referred to as an “illegal immigrant”, “queue jumper” and even a
“terrorist”.
“Where
is the queue? You run away for your life – hello, they wanna kill me! There is
no queue”, Soltany says. He vigorously rejects the likelihood that the public
accurately understands refugee issues. Soltany refers to his poem The Only Hope After God:
“We
were the fan for the political fire, Now we find ourselves in the flames”. His
poem describes being stuck in a “quagmire of prejudice”.
Mfashingabo,
himself a refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), agrees that the
public perception of refugees is fundamentally flawed. “What they have is
pretty much propaganda that is spun through the media”, he tells The Scavenger.
“The public has been misinformed incredibly”.
Mfashingabo
lived in a refugee camp in Kenya for three years after his ethnic group was
stripped of its citizenship rights. He cannot return to the DRC as he believes
it would “amount to suicide”. He says that some people’s only option is to seek
refuge in another country, but what drives that decision is rarely mentioned in
the media.
“Nothing
serious is being discussed. Out of sight, out of mind”, Mfashingabo says,
lamenting an often trivial media which features stories about shopping
addiction and skateboarding dogs.
Rintoul
strongly believes the public perception is “coloured” by the way refugees and
asylum seekers are presented by the media and politicians. He claims that the
language is deliberate.
“It’s
to create a picture, to create an attitude, to invite a particular way of
looking at refugees”, Rintoul says. “When the media do it, it’s not an
accident. I mean, there have been Press Council findings that asylum seekers
are not illegal and the boats are not illegal and should not be referred to in
that way. They are constantly
referred to in that way”.
In
Rintoul’s eyes, this language and the detention of asylum seekers are
techniques of delegitimising them.
“Shame!”
Soltany
yells into the loudspeaker. His voice reverberates throughout Sydney’s Town
Hall courtyard, and is then echoed by 150 protestors. Fijian man Josefa Rauluni
died after jumping off a roof at Villawood Detention Centre a few days earlier,
and the protest was organised hastily to condemn the government’s policy of
mandatory detention.
Two
of Soltany’s years in detention were spent at Villawood, and he says he was
stressed and shocked upon hearing the news of Rauluni’s death. He says that he
witnessed several suicides during his years in detention.
Last month’s suicide of a young Afghan man at Curtin
Detention Centre was the fifth suicide in Australian immigration detention
within a seven-month period. These deaths highlight an intensifying and pervading
sense of hopelessness amongst detainees.
Soltany
wrote poetry in detention to help express his feelings of despair - “as a
companion to my mind”. His poems were dark, prompting his roommate to urge him,
“Please write something about hope!”. But Soltany says he couldn’t: “I couldn’t
find hope”. He kept writing throughout his time in detention, and last year he
released a book of his poetry, Inside Out.
His poetry has received wide acclaim, and he has even collaborated on a book
with writer Tom Keneally, whom he considers a good friend.
Post-detention,
becoming a refugee advocate was a natural step for Soltany. He has also taken
on a case worker role for many asylum seekers to assist with their claims.
Despite
his distressing experiences in detention, he loves Australia and has started to
recover from his mental trauma. Music was central to Soltany’s healing process,
and is something he is actively pursuing with his band. He hopes that his book
of poetry will help people to understand the suffering of those in detention, a
place he says crushed his spirit.
Rintoul
is in it for the long haul – he always knew it would be a long-term campaign.
He says that although the campaign “always” faces opposition from the
government, he is boosted by the small successes.
He
retrieves a piece of paper from his desk - “a little list of unfinished
business”. He counts and laughs: there are 16 points on the list, and he says
“I think there are two of them that we’ve won”.
Rintoul
believes the razor wire is emblematic: that it “cuts” Australian society by
embedding a discrimination which impacts on the wider community.
“That
razor wire also imprisons us, as long as we allow its existence”.
*Not her real name
