This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/jan/02/iranian-refugees-in-custody-on-manus-after-assault-by-png-police-advocates-say

The article has changed 4 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 1 Version 2
Iranian refugees in custody on Manus after assault by PNG police, advocates say Iranian refugees in custody on Manus after assault by PNG police, advocates say
(about 4 hours later)
Two Iranian refugees on Manus Island were reportedly assaulted by a group of Papua New Guinean police and immigration officials on New Year’s Eve and are now in custody without charge or medical attention. Two Iranian refugees on Manus Island remain in police detention without charge two days after being reportedly assaulted by police and immigration officials on New Year’s Eve.
The Refugee Action Coalition says the two men, whose first names are Mehdi and Mohammad, were joining in new year’s celebrations when they were confronted by PNG immigration officials who told them they had no right to be outside the detention centre, and, along with police officers, assaulted them. The two men, whose first names are Mehdi and Mohammad, were allegedly assaulted when they were in Lorengau township at about 8pm on New Year’s Eve.
Behrouz Boochani, an Iranian journalist and fellow refugee also held on Manus, visited the men in police detention on Monday.
“The refugees said the first to attack them were two PNG immigration officers who were drunk and came to them and said ‘you don’t have the right to be outside of the prison at this moment’.”
“After a few minutes the police joined them and beat them extremely badly in the head, face, back and hands. One of the refugees has pain in his head and probably his hand is broken.”
The men remain in police custody on Monday morning. They have not been charged with any offence, and have not yet been allowed to go to hospital or see a doctor.
“The refugees were so scared and distressed and they said the police did not give them any food or medical treatment,” Boochani said.
Boochani said Mohammad remained in a serious condition, he has told authorities has he blood in his urine and stomach pains.
“Some local people gave them food but Mohammad vomited the food and Mehdi has started to hunger strike. He has pain in his hand and thinks his hand is broken.”
The Australian Department of Immigration and Border Protection said on Sunday night it was aware of an incident on Manus Island on Saturday involving two Iranian refugees but, as a law and order matter, “the issue is primarily one for the PNG police force”.The Australian Department of Immigration and Border Protection said on Sunday night it was aware of an incident on Manus Island on Saturday involving two Iranian refugees but, as a law and order matter, “the issue is primarily one for the PNG police force”.
The Refugee Action Coalition says the Australian government is a “party to the brutality”. The minister for immigration, Peter Dutton, told Sydney radio station 2GB that he wanted to hear from the PNG police before commenting further.
“It’s time the government stopped playing politics with the lives of innocent people, and brought all the asylum seekers and refugees to Australia,” said the organisation’s spokesman, Ian Rintoul. “If people have had an interaction with the PNG police on a New Year’s Eve night, I would wait to see the full facts of that case before I’d make any comment to say that they were targeted because they were refugees or because they were part of the Manus Island population,” he said.
Rintoul said the men were allowed to be outside the detention centre and were not doing anything wrong. Photos sent to the Refugee Action Coalition show severe injuries. “I think we’re better off to wait for the full facts instead of letting the refugee advocates try to use this to again attack the government’s successful border protection policy.”
The spokesman said the men were in custody without charge and had not received medical attention or pain relief. Phone calls to the PNG police force have not been returned.
“Mehdi says he believes that his wrist and jaw may be broken while Mohammed is suffering severe headache and pain and thinks his nose is broken,” he said in a statement. But spokesman for the Refugee Action Coalition Ian Rintoul said the Australian government was a “party to the brutality”.
The Refugee Action Coalition obtained details of the reported assault through a phone call with a friend of the men who is also a refugee. “It’s time the government stopped playing politics with the lives of innocent people, and brought all the asylum seekers and refugees to Australia.”
“The refugees and asylum seekers on Manus Island are on the island because of the Australian government, and the detention centre is under Australian government control. The Australian government is responsible for these ongoing abuses of human rights.”
Australian officials exercise overall authority and control over the Manus Island detention centre, and the assault of the two men has again drawn attention to the nature of their detention on the island and their futures after more than three years in detention.
In April last year, the PNG supreme court ruled that the detention of asylum seekers and refugees in the Manus Island centre was “illegal and unconstitutional”. Both the Australian and PNG governments agreed to close it, but, more than eight months later, it remains open.
The Australian and PNG governments insist the men on Manus are no longer in detention and are free to move around, though not leave, the island.
But those on the island say the changes to the detention regime have been superficial: the detention centre remains ringed by three-metre steel fences and the men cannot move freely within it; they cannot walk outside the centre because it is housed within a military base, and can only leave on pre-arranged, scheduled buses; they are security screened on entry and exit; and their communications are monitored.
Australia announced in November it had reached an agreement with the United States to resettle refugees from its offshore detention network - Manus Island and Nauru - in America, but there remain few details about the nature of the agreement, the number of people to be resettled, and when that might happen.
A change of administration in the US, on January 20, might also change, or end, that agreement.
The assault on Mehdi and Mohammad follows the death of Sudanese refugee Faysal Ishak Ahmed, after he collapsed inside the Manus Island detention centre just over a week ago.
Ahmed had reportedly been seriously unwell for months, suffering regular seizures, but he had allegedly been told he was faking his illness and told not to seek help at the medical centre anymore.
The father of one collapsed and was treated at the medical clinic on December 22, before being medivacced by air ambulance as an emergency case to Australia. He was pronounced dead at a Brisbane hospital on December 24.
In the wake of his death, the Queensland coroner has been flooded with emails pleading for a coronial inquest into his death.
The Guardian understands at least 40 emails from refugee advocates, religious groups, and other members of the public, have been sent to the Queensland Coroner in a campaign to request an open and public inquest.
“There needs to be clear repercussions for either the doctors or the government who oversee the medical care of refugee applicants in offshore detention centres. It is apparent to the Australian public that the current system is wilfully endangering human life,” one of the emails states.
Currently underway before Queensland state coroner Terry Ryan is an inquest into the death of Hamid Kehazaei, who died in September 2014 after a leg infection contracted in the Manus Island detention centre turned septic and caused a series of heart attacks and ultimately, his death.
The coronial inquest into his death has heard that the Manus Island medical facilities were inadequate, doctors’ clinical instructions were ignored and critical medical equipment was not working. Requests to urgently transfer Kehazaei from the island were ignored, then refused, before he was finally flown on an air ambulance, first to Port Moresby and then, ultimately, to Brisbane.
Several other asylum seekers and refugees have died in immigration detention or on detention islands. Reza Barati was murdered by guards inside the Manus detention centre in 2014, and in 2016, Omid Masoumali died after dousing himself in lighter fluid and setting himself alight on Nauru, in protest at being held indefinitely on the island.
Other refugees suffering serious medical complaints, including pregnant woman facing complex births, or suspected cancerous growths, have been denied medical transfers from detention islands.
The National Justice Project, a not-for-profit human rights law centre in Sydney, has called on the Australian Government to institute a Royal Commission into the medical care of refugees on Manus Island and Nauru.
“This is the tip of the iceberg. The government consistently delays necessary medical treatment, often until it is too late,” principal solicitor of the project, adjunct professor George Newhouse said.
“Evidence given at the coronial investigation into Hamid Khazaei’s death has confirmed that the government’s political manoeuvring can be fatal. An inquest would determine whether the government’s actions, poor medical care or both contributed to Fayzal’s death but they take time and how many more individuals will die waiting for the government to act on such recommendations.”
“A royal commission with broader enquiry powers into the provision of health care on Nauru and Manus is necessary to lift the lid on this scandalous state of affairs.”