dreamer_easy | Weekly refugee posting 1: Manus Island

I'll have to break this down into multiple postings again. Let's start with Manus Island.

Firstly, a candlelit vigils will be held around the country this Sunday night (23 Feb) for 23-year old Reza Berati, the Iranian asylum seeker killed at the detention centre. Amnesty International has an online petition.

Last Sunday night (16 February), 35 detainees broke out of the detention centre. All were returned to the centre, 8 were arrested, 19 were given medical treatment. The breakout was apparently the culmination of a protest in response to the detainees were told by officials they would not be resettled in Papua New Guinea. (Immigration Minister Scott Morrison has denied this. PNG's immigration authority stated there was no breakout.)

On Monday night, a much more serious outbreak of violence occurred, leaving one asylum seeker dead, one with a skull fracture and one shot in the buttocks (both flown to Australia for treatment), 11 others seriously injured, and 62 injured in total. Although an independent inquiry will take several months to establish exactly what happened, eyewitness accounts (passed on through journlists and advocates) paint a terrifying picture of retaliation by armed security forces against unarmed detainees:

Ian Rintoul of the Refugee Action Coalition: "... gangs of armed police and locals actually went from compound to compound, you know, hunting down asylum seekers and inflicting very serious injuries on people that they got their hands on... from our information it was PNG police and locals seemed to be acting in concert in some way... we've heard, you know, like hair-raising reports that people have been attacked with sticks and machetes, people have been chopped with machetes, beaten with sticks."
PNG correspondent Liam Cochrane: "What was described in terms of the responsibility for the violence was that it was mostly the PNG G4S guards who were at times backed up by the PNG mobile squad. At times the PNG G4S guards withdrew from the compound, from the detention centre and the area where the fighting was taking place and the PNG mobile squad came in and at times fired some shots. The other thing that was said was that the head injuries sustained by the man who died came from a rock that was thrown from outside of the detention centre; it's not clear who threw the rock."
News site New Matilda: "All day Monday the [detainees] were saying, 'get us out of here, we're afraid. The PNG guards have been making faces at us, telling us they're going to come back. They said that as soon as it got dark, the locals were going to come for them — and that is exactly what happened."
Immigration Department translator Azita Bokan: "Definitely, 100 per cent, I stand by the statement that the local people, including some employed by G4S, they were the ones who caused this drama. There was blood everywhere. The number injured was horrific: people with massive head injuries, at least one with a slashed throat. The detainees, they grabbed these plastic chairs and were holding it in front of them to use it as a shield, not as a weapon."
An unidentified witness told ABC news that G4S guards attacked detainees with iron bars, rubber hoses, sticks, fists, boots, and shields, and dragged detainees out of hiding in order to beat them. Guards also spoke to the ABC to deny that weapons had been used.

Reza Berati's body has been under guard by G4S guards - essentially, those suspected of killing him. His body will be autopsied in Port Moresby and returned to his family in Iran for burial.

Australia's running of the detention centre has been criticised by Manus Island's police chief, and Berati's death has been protested by Iran (!). (Even China (!!) rapped us over the knuckles last week. How are we supposed to look countries with poor human rights records in the eye and tell them to pull up their socks?!)