Confronting scenes confront those on Manus Island
IMMIGRATION Minister Peter Dutton has been dubbed a “terrorist” by a Federal MP as the stand-off on Manus Island continues.
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IMMIGRATION Minister Peter Dutton has been dubbed a “terrorist” by Federal Greens MP Adam Bandt as the stand-off on Manus Island continues.
Mr Bandt was at a rally in Melbourne protesting against the treatment of 600 refugees and asylum seekers who remain on the island where the government has closed the detention centre.
Mr Bandt told the crowd the men had been “thrown in prison” by the Australian Government.
“These people have committed no crime other than to do what every single one of us would do if we thought our lives, or our family’s lives, were at risk,” he said.
“If the definition of terror is to use violence and threaten people’s lives for political purposes, then Peter Dutton is a terrorist,” he also said.
He also slammed Labor for reopening the offshore processing centre while in government.
A similar rally was also held in Sydney.
The UN has called on the Turnbull Government to provide immediate protection, food, water and other basic services in an “unfolding humanitarian crisis”.
The comment comes as Labor says Malcolm Turnbull must ask President Donald Trump to speed up the resettling of refugees in the US as the stand-off at the Manus Island detention centre enters a fourth day.
More than 600 refugees have barricaded themselves in the mothballed detention centre, which closed on Tuesday.
Food and drinking water has run out and the group is too scared to move to alternative accommodation in the main township out of fear they’ll be attacked by locals.
The last food packs were distributed on Sunday.
“Turnbull is meeting with President Trump in coming weeks, in Asia, he should raise again the possibility of taking some people,” Opposition Leader Bill Shorten told reporters in Melbourne.
“There is something going on at Manus which is deeply disturbing to the Australian people.” The Obama administration agreed to resettle up to 1250 people from Nauru and Manus Island.
President Trump was unimpressed with the deal but has reluctantly agreed to honour it, and so far about 50 people have moved to the US.
The prime minister is meeting with New Zealand’s leader Jacinda Ardern in Sydney on Sunday.
She has repeated a previous offer to resettled 150 people, and Mr Shorten backed that plan.
“The government should accept that offer,” he said.
“Where you have got 600 people without food and water for days, the government needs to take an active interest in their welfare.”
INSIDE MANUS ISLAND
THE twisted metal bones of a burned out supermarket and a table heaped with withered bouquets as tributes to those who died in the inferno is the first sight that greets visitors to Manus’ main town.
An investigation continues into the September blaze at Lorengau but if it turns out to be arson, a case for mass murder will have to be made as 10 Chinese workers died, trapped inside the building.
It’s a confronting scene that does little to help Australia’s argument that the town is a safe and welcoming place for asylum seekers.
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Fear for personal safety is the key justification being used by the nearly 590 men for remaining barricaded in the closed Manus Regional Processing Centre at Lombrum Naval Base.
“We won’t be safe,” or “the locals don’t want us” was the common refrain that asylum seekers said when News Corp visited the closed down centre on Thursday and asked why they did not wish to leave.
Says Iranian Kurdish journalist Behrouz Boochani who has been in the centre for four years and is a sometime spokesman for the asylum seekers, “We have had very bad experiences and some serious kind of violence in the Island.
RELATED: Julie Bishop slams asylum seekers
We're asking that ppl & gov respect our peaceful resitance. We've been in peaceful silent protest for 3mths. We didn't come to PNG by choice
— Behrouz Boochani (@BehrouzBoochani) November 3, 2017
“People are scared from the Navy (that runs the base) because they have fired 100 times into our rooms. It is a logical fear because of our experiences.”
Australian Immigration Department officials have rejected their concerns and say there is appropriate alternative accommodation established near Lorengau for the men with good security.
The three alternative sites are located about five minutes drive east from the Lorengau town centre.
The closest to town is the East Lorengau Refugee Transit centre, which is situated on a slight hill, surrounded by a security fence and featuring a manned front gate with a security guard.
A second site nearby hosts two complexes which the Immigration Department calls the West Lorengau Centre and Hillside Haus.
Efforts by News Corp to visit this centre were rebuffed this week by aggressive local security who threatened to damage cameras if any pictures were taken of their post.
The guards’ hostility may be connected to debate over whether all facilities at the West Lorengau centre are complete.
Construction workers have told News Corp some buildings in the West Lorengau site will not be finished for two months while Greens Senator Nick McKim has said he has photographs that confirm some of the accommodation is under construction.
MANUS LOCALS ANYTHING BUT WELCOMING
The Immigration Department denies not having enough accommodation for all the asylum seekers and says the venues are “safe and secure”.
But while the department officials may consider the venues safe, locals who live around the West Lorengau site this week were anything but welcoming towards asylum seekers.
A community meeting on Wednesday saw angry local men address politicians and argue for the centre to be canned.
Resident Bernard Moigah who attended the meeting told News Corp that like many who were against the centre going ahead they feared refugees would cause social issues in the community via tensions over interaction with local women.
Tensions have flared previously in the wider community involving concerns about asylum seekers having relationships with local women.
A Sri Lankan refugee who moved out of the detention centre to live in Lorengau town was accused of raping a woman in a hotel earlier this year.
The refugee denied the allegation saying he was in a relationship and the sex was consensual.
He was charged and due to face a committal hearing last month but he appeared to have committed suicide last month while receiving treatment at a local hospital.
His death takes the number of asylum seekers associated with the island to have died to six and is the second suspected suicide on the island.
In August Iranian asylum seeker Hamed Shamshiripour was found dead in a suspected suicide near refugee accommodation on the island. Late last year a Sudanese refugee died in hospital in Australia after collapsing in the detention centre.
In 2016 a Pakistani refugee drowned swimming in a water fall on the island and in 2014 an Iranian asylum seeker died as a result of an infection in his leg.
The deaths do not appear to be directly related to violent incidents but asylum seekers still remain severely traumatised by the killing of Iranian asylum seeker Reza Berati, 23, who was found dead after the riot in 2014.
Two local men were later found guilty and sentenced to 10 years for bashing murder of Berati. One of the fatal blows involved one of the killers dropping a large rock on Berati’s head inside the centre.
During the riot, locals stormed the centre and attacked the refugees.
Officials tried to bring order back by unleashing PNG’s feared Mobile Squad police — a counter-riot style-squad of officers that have automatic weapons and a reputation for deadly brutality.
MANUS ISLAND’S HISTORY OF TROUBLE
This week the Mobile Squad were back on the island — supposedly to ensure the protection for the refugees still in the detention centre.
A detachment of the officers who wear military style uniforms was stationed near the police station at Lorengau on Friday afternoon.
The squad has left an indelible impression from a security perspective on the island when it first arrived in 2013 and proceeded to severely beat a local man in the main market just around the corner from the burned out supermarket.
On New Year’s Eve last year it was near these same main markets that two asylum seekers were severely beaten and arrested.
Local authorities claimed the men were punching cars and harassing women and charged them with being drunk and disorderly.
But the pair Mehdi 26 and Mohamed, 28, vigorously denied the allegations and claimed they had been beaten up by immigration officers and police. Both suffered severe facial injuries.
Those asylum seekers who know best about the security situation are the ones who have moved out of the detention centre and live in the town.
They are in agreement the town is not safe.
The Australian Immigration Department says 34 designated refugees and one failed asylum seeker are currently residing in the community.
One well known refugee is Sajid Hussein who works in the reception counter at the Harbourside Hotel in Lorengau.
He says he is constantly concerned for his safety.
“Two weeks ago I was walking in the town and some locals robbed me. They held a knife to my throat and took my phone,’’ he said.
“It was in the afternoon about 3 o, clock. They (the locals) they don’t want us here. We (who live near Lorengau) have to be very careful when we move around. They will abuse us. It is mostly the men. The women treat us well.’’
Hussein said he reported theft to the police but he has heard nothing back.
If the Australian Government succeeds in shifting all of the asylum seekers out of the centre, it’s likely to be one of many crimes that local police will have to investigate.