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AUSTRALIA-IMMIGRATION-POLITICS-HUNGER-STRIKE
Australia denies mass immigrant hunger strike
SYDNEY, Jan 11, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Australia has denied that hundreds of
immigrants have gone on a mass hunger strike at a facility in Melbourne,
while insisting conditions at the facility are not “inhumane or brutal.”
Days after detainees and activists declared a hunger strike in a protest
against living conditions, the Australian Border Force said there was no
“mass hunger strike” at Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation.
“While some detainees are refusing to attend regular meal times as part of
a protest, they continue to eat and drink in other parts of the facility,”
the border force said in a statement.
But activist Ian Rentoul of the Refugee Action Coalition said the “hunger
strike protest” was now in its fourth day.
Detainees launched the protest over complaints of prison-like conditions
and limited privacy.
Thirty-year-old New Zealander John Vaofusi, who lost automatic residency
rights after being convicted for assault, earlier told AFP said he would
continue the hunger strike “until we see some change.”
“I feel like I’m in jail again,” he said. “I’ve done my time for that
crime.”
The border force defended conditions inside the centre, saying “the
detention population has changed considerably in recent years.”
It added “a significant number” of the detained population had “their visa
cancelled on character grounds, based on criminal convictions and links to
criminal associations such as outlaw motorcycle gangs or organised crime.”
Successive conservative and Labor governments have upheld a decades-old
policy of mandatory detention for “unlawful non-citizens” even for minor
offences like visa overstays.
Hunger strikes are a frequent occurrence at Australia’s onshore detention
facilities, which house people who have run afoul of immigration law.
Last year hundreds of detainees at a centre in Sydney went on hunger strike
against strict visitation rules.
Detainees have also used short-lived strikes to garner media coverage and
put pressure on Australia’s conservative government to close the facilities.
BSS/AFP/RY/12:15 hrs