Around 50 people have spent the night on the oval (green zone) of Christmas Island detention centre, as more police and Serco guards gather on the perimeter of the centre.
As of 2.30am Christmas Island time, no attempt had been made by police or guards to re-enter the detention centre. Late yesterday, television had been cut off to the centre. Some food had been left at the gate of the centre and detainees told to collect it. Armed police and others in full riot gear can be seen outside the detention fences. Detainees report that drones have been circulating over the centre and the Federal police have been issuing instructions through a megaphone to ‘dump any weapons and return to your rooms.’
Most detainees have remained in the accommodation blocks in any case. “The government talks about ‘restoring order’ in the centre, but restoring order to the riot police and Serco’s Emergency Response Team will only mean a return of the brutal rule of force inside the detention centre, that led to the explosion on Christmas Island.
“The ‘behavioural management’ regime inside Christmas Island is reminiscent of the behaviour familiar in Guantanamo Bay. It relies on solitary confinement, 24 hour surveillance, denial of access to a phone or the internet and systemic force, reprisals, and beatings by the Serco guards of anyone who they consider steps out of line.
“There is a widespread belief that Serco guards were involved in the death of Fazal Chegeni because of their experience of the guards in the detention centre,” said Ian Rintoul, spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition.
“One of the first measures detainees took inside the detention centre when the guards withdrew late Sunday night was to free the detainees from the hated high security Red Compound.
“Christmas Island is being used as the punishment centre of the government’s detention regime. People are arbitrarily moved there as a punitive measure. It is much worse than jail. There is no reason for the so-called ‘criminal deportees’ to be in immigration detention. They have done their time, according the criminal justice system.
“There is no reason for the asylum seekers to be there. They have committed no crime. Fazal, whose death ignited the tensions inside the detention centre, should never have been in detention. He should never have been on Christmas Island.
One Facebook message from inside the detention centre, referring to the Fazal’s death reads, “On Friday night our brother managed to get over the fence and spend his last days in the living hell, a free man….Whatever happened to our brother is [the doing] of immigration and Australian Border Force.”
“The punitive regime on Christmas Island must end. Like Nauru and Manus, Christmas Island should be closed,” said Rintoul.
For more information contact Ian Rintoul 0417 275 713
