Workers' Liberty Australia
'the emancipation of the working class must be the act of the working class' - Karl Marx
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Workers' Liberty Australia'the emancipation of the working class must be the act of the working class' - Karl Marx
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by Lynn Smith
Rape of women detainees and staff by security guards! A father selling his son's body for cigarettes! Anaesthetic drugs administered under duress! Force feeding of hunger strikers handcuffed to their beds! Regular bashings! Water cannon! Workers bound to silence by crooked job contracts! People referred to by numbers, not their names! Widespread sexual and verbal harassment of women! Security guards rotated every six weeks so they can't form relationships with asylum seekers and begin to feel guilty about what they are ordered to do!
What reads like a description of conditions in Hitler's and Stalin's camps is also a description of daily life in Liberal Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock's detention centres for men, women and children (mostly from Middle Eastern countries) who committed the heinous crime of arriving in Australia without asking. Here is an interview with Cyrus of the Iranian Refugee Associations Centre who arrived in Australia 10 years ago as a political refugee from fundamentalist oppression in Iran. Cyrus is now an Australian citizen and is fighting to assist those who came here under the same conditions as he did.
CYRUS: We got rid of the Shah. But when the fundamentalists took over, they were after those of us who are Marxists. I escaped to New Delhi in India. I applied for entry to 125 countries when I was in New Delhi. Eventually the UN put me on a plane and told me that I was going to Finland or Canada. But the plane landed in Sydney. I didn't know it was going to land in Sydney. When I went up to the desk at Mascot airport they said "where is your passport"? I said "I don't have a passport. I had to flee my country. I am a refugee. I was told I was going to Finland or Canada". They said "you have to have a passport or we can't let you in". It went on like this for hours while I was searched and in handcuffs.
WL: Do you support
the hunger strikers?
CYRUS: Ruddock is saying the refugees got feedback from outsiders. There is
no such thing and he's a liar. We argued with the people who wanted to do this.
But they decided they wanted to do a hunger strike in the detention centre.
We do not support the hunger strike as a method. But we do support the refugees
in their demands. Their demand is freedom. They have stayed long term in detention
centres... like four years or five years.
WL: This is not the
first time people have gone on a hunger strike in Ruddock's camps is it?
CYRUS: No. It happened a few months before the Olympics. The strike took five
days and the Howard government wasn't happy because the Olympics were about
to start and 3000 journalists were coming from overseas and they didn't want
this hunger strike to pop up in the media all over the world. That's why they
called in the riot police who hammered the refugees. They used some kind of
sleeping chemical in the drinking water. And they cut the electricity.
We said "this is not the way to act" but we did support them in their demands.
We asked them "why you want to go on hunger strike? And they told us the court
decisions about their status always go in favour of what the Australian government
wants. They were very angry and desperate and they were tired and felt useless.
They felt they wanted to do suicide inside. They wanted to cut their tummy.
They wanted to cut their throat. What is this hell? After 212 years in this
country we have these detention centres. How can these 'nazi' camps be allowed
to exist? I'm really, really sorry for the Australian people. Fascists and racists
are running the detention centres. They are run by ACM. They corporatised it
to make a profit. When you go to visit someone in a detention centre they will
tell you to remove your shirt... even the women. The officers are brutal and
they are harming the refugees inside.
This was in Villawood detention centre in Sydney. This was stage 2. It's a nazi
camp and it's a prison. It's a medium prison with maximum security. There are
185 in stage 2 and about 125-145 in stage 2 in Villawood at the moment.
WL: If you do manage
to get out of a camp, what happens then?
CYRUS: They give you a bridging visa. What this means is you don't exist. No
health care. No social security. You are not allowed to work. So you have no
income. You're on your own. If you have family, you have to call them for money.
The government does not care. If you're sick, you're sick. It's a joke. After
six months on a bridging visa they might decide to put you back in a detention
centre and they might send you back. You have to wait for Philip Ruddock, the
second Hitler. He has to decide. If they decide you can't stay they take you
and deport you. They give you an injection which acts like heroin or morphine...it's
an anaesthetic that makes you numb. You're like meat. You're put into a wheelchair
and then you go to a section of the plane cordoned off with a curtain with two
security officers present. They take you to the airport of the country you came
from and leave you there. That's it.
There were two Iranian men who were deported. We rang and told their families
in Iran and they said "No they're in Australia". One of these men was so desperate
he woke up in the plane, found a knife and cut his own throat. The plane did
an emergency landing in Brisbane and they took him to the army barracks. Not
to a hospital. He was restrained.
A nurse in that hospital is married to an Iranian and she got the info out.
They stitched his throat and gave him another injection and deported him back
to Iran. That man...his parents paid $1 million to the Iranian government to
let him go. But he's now back in Iran in prison.
WL: Have you had
support from Aboriginal people?
CYRUS: Yes. From Ray Jackson and the late Charlie Perkins. Charlie was one of
my speakers at the detention centre. The first was Ray Jackson. He said "You're
not alone. We are in the same boat". The Aboriginal people are treated very
badly. After 212 years, what have they done for us? Nothing!
WL: Are people continuing
to join your support group?
CYRUS: Yes. Families with ethnic backgrounds and multicultural families who
feel that Australia is demolishing their cultures. Australia is multicultural.
There is no reason for it to be fascist and racist.
WL: It may not be
easy to get workers to support you but as a socialist you know that this is
the only way. Have you had support from the trade union movement?
CYRUS: Yes. Seven months ago we heard the news that a number of Somalian men
were going to be deported from Adelaide. We sent an activist in Adelaide to
talk to the unions. They contacted union officials and told them that the men
were going to be deported and sent to their deaths. Contact was made with workers
inside the airport. They talked to the engineer and asked him to delay the departure
time. They contacted the pilot and said "these people are human beings. We can't
let this happen to them".
So the pilot came out of the plane and said "I'm not moving. I will not fly
until the refugees are removed from my plane." All this took about two or three
hours. People around the aeroplane who fix the tyres and change the oil (the
maintenance workers)... they stopped work too. "I'm not touching the aeroplane.
Because you are trying to deport the refugees, we're not going to work". That's
why they moved the refugees back to the detention centre again.
WL: Have you suffered
harassment for being an activist?
CYRUS: People come in an unmarked car and wait for me outside my flat and try
to run me down. These are old techniques and are not going to work with the
migrants. We've seen this before in our own countries. We are not frightened.
The fire in Woomera (lit by asylum seekers protesting at their treatment and
delays in processing their visa applications) is the fire of anger and a fire
for freedom and democracy which does not exist in this country at the moment.