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MEDIA RELEASE: Six hangings at Baxter detention centre

Project SafeCom / repost | 12.12.2006 14:47 | Anti-racism | Migration


"Reports from refugee advocates indicate that six people at the Baxter
detention centre have attempted to end their lives in separate
incidents over the last four days by hanging," WA Rights group Project SafeCom
said this morning.
"Some of them have also slashed themselves with broken glass and
mirrors."


>
>Six hangings at Baxter detention centre
>
>Media Release
>Tuesday December 12 2006 - 7:45am WST
>For immediate Release
>No Embargoes
>
>
>"Contacts inside the Baxter detention centre also report that the
>Commonwealth Ombudsman John McMillan visited the Baxter detention
centre
>yesterday," spokesman Jack H Smit said.
>
>"These incidents are no surprise," Mr Smit said. "Regardless of the
gloss
>and varnish in the dominating comments in the Australian media by the
>Immigration Department's media spokespersons to paint incidents as
being
>"under control", and in media statements issued by DIMA that attempt
to
>"normalise" circumstances and incidents, the fact remains that
Australia
>locks up people in detention centre jails such as Baxter which
represent
>maximum security jails, whereever they are built around Australia."
>
>"As long as we lock up people in direct contravention of international
>conventions, and brazenly against the United Nations Commissioner for
>Refugees' directives where "States should only detain people as a last
>resort, and only when a State security is at risk", we will plunge
people's
>lives in despair and depression and they will sink into the lowest
depths
>of dark gloom, and they will have plenty of reasons to kill
themselves."
>
>Fact is, that most people that we lock up in the places only good for
the
>damned such as Baxter, do not need to be locked up - and certainly not
for
>the ungodly long periods where the Australian State steals their
freedom,
>the continuity of their lives, and their mental health as a result,"
Mr
>Smit said.
>
>"Mandatory detention is a bankrupt policy and these incidents form yet
>another layer in the hundreds of stories that affirm this."
>
>For more information: Jack H Smit, Project SafeCom Inc.
>Office (08) 9336-6048 | mobile 0417 090 130

Project SafeCom / repost