Dreamer Easy

Serco, the company which runs Curtin detention centre, claims that high-profile visits such as Senator Hanson-Young's cancelled visit yesterday provoke self-harm incidents. Now, no statistics are kept on actual deaths in immigration detention; given that, I don't believe that any statistics are kept on self-harm incidents in immigration detention. If I'm right (and I have some Googling to do), Serco's assertion is meaningless; the real problem is that high-profile visitors report to the public self-harm and other damage done to detainees, such as the trauma alleged by Hanson-Young.

ETA: I was wrong; self-harm statistics are kept. In fact, there's an extensive report from the Commonwealth Ombudsman from last year - which nowhere mentions any impact from high-profile visitors. Rather, the factors causing self-harm are obvious: past trauma, prolonged, hopeless detention, isolation, overcrowding, and unavoidably witnessing other detainees harming themselves.

While the 157 Tamils were being held at sea, secret negotiations were taking place between the Australian and Indian governments regarding their fate.

Although the 157 people aboard the boat from India are seeking asylum (according to High Court documents), and no officials from any country has interviewed them yet, Immigration Minister Scott Morrison has branded them Wirtschaftsemigranten ("economic migrants", as the Nazis called fleeing Jews) because India a "safe" country. India is not a party to the Refugee Convention. Most Tamil refugees there are required to live in camps under constant surveillance and in poor and sometimes dangerous conditions; they report police harassment, and face the danger of refoulement - being sent back to Sri Lanka.

Fifty of the 157 are children. The asylum seekers are suing for damages for false imprisonment.