Friday, July 22, 2005

Lawyer contradicts Vanstone over detained kids' case

The lawyer for two Sydney school children held for four months in immigration detention has disputed the version of their experience given by the Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone.

Ian Hwang, 12, and his six-year-old sister Janie spent four months in the Villawood detention centre after being removed from their inner Sydney school by Immigration officers.

They were released on Wednesday night with their mother.

The Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone says the children were taken to Villawood at the request of their mother, and they were not technically detained.

"There isn't necessarily an obvious bungle when someone's released. It can be a good thing if someone's released," she said.

"The advice I have is the children were taken to the facility at the request of the mother but not themselves technically detained."

But the Hwang family's lawyer, Michaela Byers, says the mother did not make such a request and the children were denied rights they should have had access to.

"The children were detained as unlawful non-citizens. The department attempted to deport them two weeks later," she said.

"The children were denied access to the local public school at Villawood. They were treated, I think, worse than what the normal detainee is treated.

"Someone in the Department made a decision that they were not to attend the local or public school with the other detained children.

"They were left for two months in detention without any formal education, so if they weren't really technically detained then they should have been able to freely walk in and out each day and go to school."

By Just Us 22 July 05

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