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Author Topic: Mentally ill woman in immigration detention centre for months
Walker
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Babbler # 7819

posted 06 February 2005 08:47 PM      Profile for Walker     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
'Australian PM John Howard has questioned the adequacy of immigration and mental health policies after a mentally ill woman was locked up in immigration detention.'

Read all about our wonderful immigration detention system - it even works on Australians!

Read more here.


From: Not Canada | Registered: Jan 2005  |  IP: Logged
Walker
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 7819

posted 06 February 2005 09:02 PM      Profile for Walker     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
If you can't read the URL bc of loggin in problems, here is one of the stories that has come out of it:

"Permanent residents face the nightmare of detention if they have no proof of identity.
Cornelia Rau's nightmare entrapment in the immigration detention system could easily happen to someone else, refugee advocates have warned.

Pamela Curr, co-ordinator of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre in Melbourne, who tried to help Cornelia, said her fate could befall Australia residents who could not confirm their identity, whether ill or not. It highlights that section 189 of the Immigration Act is open to abuse with its proviso that "an officer may require a person they reasonably suspect to be a non-citizen to prove who they are and their visa's status, and if they don't produce evidence of that, they can then be detained".

An immigration department spokesman confirmed that someone believed to be "an unlawful citizen" could be required to produce records of identity such as passports, birth or marriage certificates. "If they are not co-operative, it is possible they may be detained," he said.

According to the 2003 census 950,000 permanent residents who have not taken out citizenship are potentially in this category.

What Ms Rau's case highlights is that measures meant to prevent someone simply "disappearing" without trace in Australia do not work. A new national missing persons unit operating from Canberra did not have comprehensive records that included all reported missing cases with state police. There seemed to be no cross-referencing between state police.

Perhaps even worse, a story and photograph of the missing Ms Rau ran in an Adelaide newspaper in November but was not spotted by the Baxter and Immigration authorities. Lawyers and refugee groups are now asking whether anyone else is wrongfully "lost" in immigration detention.

The Kafkaesque aspect to the "Anna" case is that for 10 months alarm bells that were meant to bring about intervention against wrongful detention and treatment were rung. But those who should have been listening were not.

Ms Curr details calling the immigration department, Senator Vanstone's office, the federal Ombudsman office and writing to the Immigration Detention Advisory group in Canberra in December and January.

The president of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Surgeons, Helen Newman, the South Australia Health Authority, and QC Gordon Barrett from the Refugees Advisory Service in South Australia were all blocked by the department when they tried to get access to "Anna".

Under the Immigration Act, a detainee has to sign a written request authorising such interventions and, even with a psychiatrist's recommendation, the department has final say in whether a detainee receives hospital treatment.

David Manne, from the Refugee and Immigration Legal Centre, said he had a number of detained clients with psychiatric problems who had been refused independent pro bono psychiatric assessment by a regime in which medication is administered by non-professionals.

He points out that under the Immigration Act "Anna" was liable for the cost of her treatment, which he estimates would run at $50,000 to $100,000.

The department has so far kept quiet on this aspect, perhaps mindful that Australian compensation cases for wrongful imprisonment have reached $75,000.

Ms Curr said the whole episode was " a bureaucratic nightmare" in which "police were very quick to jump to the conclusion that she is an asylum seeker, so let's lock her up" while all the immigration department had to do was to go to the missing person's folder."

WELCOME TO AUSTRALIA 2005.

[ 06 February 2005: Message edited by: Walker ]


From: Not Canada | Registered: Jan 2005  |  IP: Logged

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