Amanda Vanstone twists the truth on Baxter Fires

Certain inmates set a series of fires in the Baxter Detention Centre in South Australia, causing $2 million dollars worth of damage and destroying the personal possessions of many asylum seekers/refugees.

Now Pamela Curr reveals the truth behind the fires with the Government deliberately mixing criminal deportees with asylum seekers to impart blame and poison the debate on the claims of asylum seekers.

Four fires were lit on Saturday causing one person to be hospitalised and five others to be treated for smoke inhalation. 34 bedrooms were destroyed along with many treasured personal possessions such as family photos, and 58 people were required to be evacuated from the centre.

The Advertiser said Senator Vanstone was appalled detainees had deliberately started the fires and had left taxpayers with a multimillion-dollar bill. "(It) was reckless and seriously endangered the lives of detainees and the Baxter staff," she said.

The ABC reported that four men were being questioned over the fires, with an Immigration department (DIMIA) spokesman saying they were people who have overstayed their visas or had their visas cancelled on bad character grounds.

Pamela Curr continues the story:

Since DIMIA have gone silent, we have collected the following information and reports from witnesses. The facts are

* No Asylum Seeker was involved in lighting the fires.
* Asylum seekers suffered loss of personal possessions and effects.
* One man, an artist with pictures in readiness for an exhibition in Port Augusta lost his entire collection.
* Some Chinese men lost their dearest possessions-photos of their families.

FACT: Three criminal deportees were involved in lighting the fires.

This highlights an ongoing problem at Baxter where men transferred from the prison system and awaiting deportation are placed throughout the asylum seeker compounds.

There is no good reason to do this when there are nine compounds at Baxter, a number of which remain unoccupied. Asylum seekers have always expressed concern and fear that ex-prisoners were placed in their compounds because they saw this as DIMIA attempting to confuse the Australian people by mixing asylum seekers and ex-prisoners to present asylum seekers as criminals.

While some ex-prisoners present few problems, others are angry and violent after many years in the prison system and frighten asylum seekers who have fled violence in their own countries. Asylum seekers report being afraid to come out of their rooms when ex-prisoners are on the rampage. They say that the ex-prisoners bait the guards poisoning the atmosphere for everyone.

These are two different groups with very different needs. DIMIA should immediately separate them. They have the space and facilities available and should do so without delay.

PAMELA CURR

More mishandling of Immigration Matters by the Department of Immigration, and the responsible Minister, Senator Amanda Vanstone. She has proven herself incompetent, lacking in responsibility, and failed to reform a racist and derogatory culture in her department established by her predecessor, Phillip Ruddock.

Where is John Howard's ministerial Code of Responsibility that he introduced in 1996? I haven't heard it mentioned at all the last few years.

By Takver posted 21 November 05

Statement of the Villawood Hunger Strikers
We are six hunger strikers from Villawood Immigration Detention Centre (VIDC) in Sydney, Australia. In order to protest against the compulsory detention policy and mental and physical impairment caused by the long-term detention in VIDC, during which many people have suffered from long-term insomnia, dysphoria, and even mental breakdown, six of us detainees started the hunger strike on 19th October, 2005.

Hundreds attempt self-harm in detention
More than half of the 900 self-harm incidents over three years occurred in the Baxter detention centre.

Justice for Vivian Alvarez Solon
The Refugee Action Collective organised Melbourne's contribution to a National Day of Action to demand compensation for Vivian Alvarez Solon and an end to forced deportations...

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.

Is Cornelia Rau running for her life?
Wrongfully detained woman Cornelia Rau has travelled to Melbourne, in breach of a South Australian mental health order.

Baxter visit convinces Burke of need for royal commission
AUSTRALIA/CUBA Federal Labor's new immigration spokesman Tony Burke says after visiting the Baxter detention centre he is now more convinced then ever of the need for a royal commission into immigration detention.

Gov't Failure Card: Community
The controversial plan was yesterday raised by Queensland Premier Peter Beattie, who suggested a national ID card to prevent unlawful detention similar to that suffered by Cornelia Rau and Vivian Alvarez.

Some people want to remain anonymous
The federal attorney-general has suggested that two women wrongfully detained by the Immigration Department could have avoided being locked up if they had cooperated more with authorities.

'Anna's nightmare' in detention's living hell
Australia: IN his whitewashed report on the detention scandals, government employee Mick Palmer refers to Cornelia Rau's four months in Baxter detention centre as "Anna's journey".

Detention policy: Change Your Mind
It would not be wrong to answer in the affirmative. Another reason is that our political system is adjusting to the highly publicised breaches of human rights via individual cases such as Peter Qasim, Cornelia Rau and Vivian Alvarez Solon.

Psychiatrists dismiss Vanstone's call to limit role
Psychiatrists treating mentally-ill Baxter detainees have rejected the Immigration Minister Senator Amanda Vanstone's call for them to restrict their role to the immediate care of patients.

HREOC's deadline on child detainees passes
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Tampering with Asylum
HAVE YOU EVER THOUGHT THAT AUSTRALIA'S recent policies on asylum seekers are wrong, but don't quite have the statistics to back up your views?

Baxter,'akin to the time in Nazi Germany'
I went to Baxter this Easter just past, and became more aware that this time is akin to the time in Nazi Germany when the concentration camps were being set up.

Asylum seeker denied medical help, court hears
An Iranian asylum seeker was denied access to psychiatric help, despite slashing himself several times inside South Australia's Baxter detention centre, the Federal Court in Adelaide has heard.

Once You've Been to Baxter You Can't Sit on the Fence
I spent this Easter in the desert. I spent this Easter protesting at Baxter detention centre to draw the world's attention to the injustice of Australia's racist and inhumane mandatory detention system and treatment of asylum seekers.

Detention Centres, Solitary Confinement
On Friday night the NSW Council for Civil Liberties awarded Sydney solicitor John Marsden honorary life membership. Julian Burnside was invited to make the speech in Marsden's honour. In the course of his speech, Burnside referred to the unregulated use of solitary confinement in Australia's immigration detention centres, criticising it as inhumane and also as unlawful.

MP urges asylum seekers' release
A federal Coalition MP has called for the release of all asylum seekers being held in immigration detention centres.

Australian held in Baxter detention centre
It has been revealed an Australian resident has been locked up in Baxter Detention Centre in South Australia for the past four months. Authorities had been unable to establish her identity since she was found wandering in far north Queensland last September.

Did Cornelia Rau have a mental illness?
CORNELIA Rau returned to psychiatric care in Adelaide, just days after being released into the community, appears to be very suspicious indeed!

Submission to Senate: Inquiry into Mental Health 2005
We appreciate that the urgent issues of Human Rights and other abuses including institutionalisation and the use of force, and the lack of progress on Burdekin are being examined by the Committee.

Govt defends decision to detain Korean woman?
The Immigration Department says there was no unlawful detention in the case of a Korean woman recently held at South Australia's Baxter detention centre?

Rau ordeal a raw deal
Ms Rau spent time in a Queensland prison and a hospital before being handed to immigration authorities who kept her in detention for another four months.

Australian held in Baxter detention centre
It has been revealed an Australian resident has been locked up in Baxter Detention Centre in South Australia for the past four months. Authorities had been unable to establish her identity since she was found wandering in far north Queensland last September.

Lawyers want Baxter detainee released for treatment !
Lawyers acting for a hunger-striking detainee inside South Australia's Baxter detention centre have asked the Federal Court to order a psychiatric assessment for the man, saying he needs to be in mental health care, not detention.

Baxter protesters 'being denied water, sleep'?
One of the three Iranian men has been on the roof of the gymnasium since Sunday last week, with two others joining him on Tuesday.

Detainees urged to abandon rooftop protest!
Kathy Verran from Rural Australians for Refugees, says one of the men has since come down and has been taken into the management unit. solitary confinement for Xmas?

Advocates warn of detention centre riot risk
A prominent refugee advocate warns South Australia's Baxter Detention Centre is on the brink of a major riot. A protest involving about 25 male detainees broke out at the centre on Tuesday, over a new system which is delaying the process of dispensing medication to detainees.

Advocates warn of detention centre riot risk
A prominent refugee advocate warns South Australia's Baxter Detention Centre is on the brink of a major riot. A protest involving about 25 male detainees broke out at the centre on Tuesday, over a new system which is delaying the process of dispensing medication to detainees.

Villawood detainees go on hunger strike
A refugee advocacy group says up to 200 detainees at the Villawood Detention Centre, in Sydney, have begun a hunger strike to draw attention to their situation ahead of the federal election.

Afghan children lose High Court battle against detention
Lawyers have lost their constitutional challenge to the detention of four children at a South Australian immigration centre. Four siblings from Afghanistan, aged between seven and 15, have been in detention since they arrived in Australia in 2001.

Democrats to keep up pressure over asylum seekers
The Australian Democrats will maintain their pressure on the next federal government over Australia's treatment of asylum seekers, if the party can retain its strength in the Senate.

Don't rock the Boat Howard!
PRIME Minister John Howard today denied the children overboard affair had swayed the 2001 election? Mr Howard has spent the week defending himself against claims he had been informed that nobody in Defence believed children had been thrown overboard by asylum seekers.

Baxter detainee continues hunger strike
A detainee at the Baxter detention centre near Port Augusta in South Australia has been on a hunger strike for a week. Sri Lankan Zeldon Daggie, 23, says he has been detained since arriving in Australia four years ago.

Senior cleric damns Baxter as 'disgraceful'
A senior world religious figure has called on the Federal Government to scrap its mandatory detention policy after visiting the Baxter detention centre in South Australia's north.

Australia's "GITMO" System
Australia's "GITMO" System In June 2002 on the PM program on ABC radio, PHILIP RUDDOCK is quoted as saying: "Well, let me just say, detention centres are not prisons. They are administrative detention.

Detention centre media ban criticised
The Howard Government has been criticised in a report by media freedom advocate Reporters Without Borders for stopping journalists covering the conditions in refugee detention centres.

MP urges asylum seekers' release

A federal Coalition MP has called for the release of all asylum seekers being held in immigration detention centres.

Victorian Liberal Petro Georgiou has also called on the Government to allow thousands of genuine refugees on Temporary Protection Visas to be given permanent residency in a one-off amnesty.

Mr Georgiou says the "couple of hundred" asylum seekers still in Australia's detention centres should be released into the community while they are waiting for their applications to be processed.

He says the Government's "severe" asylum seeker policies are no longer needed.

"Our policies towards asylum seekers were premised on concern about vast numbers of under-deserving, potentially dangerous people landing on our shores," he said.

[Due mainly to Australian resource wars in the Middle East, occupation and genocide of Afghanistan and Iraq.]

Georgiou: "Today unauthorised boat arrivals have all but ceased and the great majority of people they carried have turned out to be genuine refugees, there were no terrorists hiding amongst the asylum seekers."

By In Solidarity 9 February 05

Rau ordeal a raw deal
Ms Rau spent time in a Queensland prison and a hospital before being handed to immigration authorities who kept her in detention for another four months.

Australian held in Baxter detention centre
It has been revealed an Australian resident has been locked up in Baxter Detention Centre in South Australia for the past four months. Authorities had been unable to establish her identity since she was found wandering in far north Queensland last September.

Lawyers want Baxter detainee released for treatment !
Lawyers acting for a hunger-striking detainee inside South Australia's Baxter detention centre have asked the Federal Court to order a psychiatric assessment for the man, saying he needs to be in mental health care, not detention.

Baxter protesters 'being denied water, sleep'?
One of the three Iranian men has been on the roof of the gymnasium since Sunday last week, with two others joining him on Tuesday.

Detainees urged to abandon rooftop protest!
Kathy Verran from Rural Australians for Refugees, says one of the men has since come down and has been taken into the management unit. [solitary confinement for Xmas?]

Advocates warn of detention centre riot risk
A prominent refugee advocate warns South Australia's Baxter Detention Centre is on the brink of a major riot. A protest involving about 25 male detainees broke out at the centre on Tuesday, over a new system which is delaying the process of dispensing medication to detainees.

Villawood detainees go on hunger strike
A refugee advocacy group says up to 200 detainees at the Villawood Detention Centre, in Sydney, have begun a hunger strike to draw attention to their situation ahead of the federal election.

Afghan children lose High Court battle against detention
Lawyers have lost their constitutional challenge to the detention of four children at a South Australian immigration centre. Four siblings from Afghanistan, aged between seven and 15, have been in detention since they arrived in Australia in 2001.

Australia's "GITMO" System
Australia's "GITMO" System In June 2002 on the PM program on ABC radio, PHILIP RUDDOCK is quoted as saying: "Well, let me just say, detention centres are not prisons. They are administrative detention.

Senior cleric damns Baxter as 'disgraceful'
A senior world religious figure has called on the Federal Government to scrap its mandatory detention policy after visiting the Baxter detention centre in South Australia's north.

Detention centre media ban criticised
The Howard Government has been criticised in a report by media freedom advocate Reporters Without Borders for stopping journalists covering the conditions in refugee detention centres.

Baxter detainee continues hunger strike
A detainee at the Baxter detention centre near Port Augusta in South Australia has been on a hunger strike for a week. Sri Lankan Zeldon Daggie, 23, says he has been detained since arriving in Australia four years ago.

Democrats to keep up pressure over asylum seekers
The Australian Democrats will maintain their pressure on the next federal government over Australia's treatment of asylum seekers, if the party can retain its strength in the Senate.

Villawood detainees go on hunger strike

A refugee advocacy group says up to 200 detainees at the Villawood Detention Centre, in Sydney, have begun a hunger strike to draw attention to their situation ahead of the federal election.

A spokesman says the strike began on Tuesday night and is expected to continue until Saturday.

Refugee Action Coalition spokesman Ian Rintoul says immigration detention featured strongly in the last federal election but he says many detainees in Villawood feel they have been forgotten this time.

Mr Rintoul says while most of the detainees are being held for breaching their visa conditions he says they face the same issues as asylum seekers.

"People can spend very long periods in detention without any sort of obvious remedies, their families can be separated," he said.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Immigration says about 370 detainees in Villawood are not attending the centre's dining room for meals.

But she says it is difficult to tell whether people are eating because food is available in more than one area in the centre. She says the department is monitoring the situation.

By Just Us 7 October 04

Related:

Afghan children lose High Court battle against detention
Lawyers have lost their constitutional challenge to the detention of four children at a South Australian immigration centre. Four siblings from Afghanistan, aged between seven and 15, have been in detention since they arrived in Australia in 2001.

Democrats to keep up pressure over asylum seekers
The Australian Democrats will maintain their pressure on the next federal government over Australia's treatment of asylum seekers, if the party can retain its strength in the Senate.

Children overboard continues to haunt PM like the plague...
John Howard's lack of integrity and morality will be under question "again" today after Labor seized on claims that a Liberal Senator called Scumbo Howard a 'lying rodent'.

Apologise to children abused in care: report
A Senate report on children placed in institutional care has called for the Federal Government to apologise to those who were harmed by their experience.

Australian Govt human rights record 'worsening'
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PRIME Minister John Howard today denied the children overboard affair had swayed the 2001 election? Mr Howard has spent the week defending himself against claims he had been informed that nobody in Defence believed children had been thrown overboard by asylum seekers.

Australia an unfair nation, say young and all!
Young people and older people think Australia is undemocratic and unfair. Young people cite their teachers as having the greatest influence on their political thinking, according to a provocative new national survey funded by the Government. Older people cite "injustice" amongst other things as a "bent legal system" favouring hi profiled superstars, corporations and politicians.

Not happy, John
Valder's alarm whistle effort 'let love be thy weapon' indeed Prime Minister John Howard is also the subject of a stinging attack in a Sunday feature this week, from the man who first engineered his ascent to the Liberal leadership in the mid-1980s former party president John Valder.

Aide reveals children overboard advice
A former federal ministerial adviser has revealed that he told Prime Minister John Howard before the 2001 federal election that no children had been thrown overboard from a boat carrying asylum seekers in Australian waters.

Gillard stirs Liberal leadership pot
Mr Costello yesterday said that the Federal Government should aim to get all children out of immigration detention and he suggested there should be an increase in immigration levels.

Here is a new project
1. Do you believe it is right to imprison innocent children?
2. Do you believe it is right to imprison innocent women?
3. Do you believe it is right to imprison innocent people?

Compo claims could follow child detention, group warns
A refugee group has predicted a string of compensation claims, after the Human Rights Commission found numerous and repeated breaches of the UN convention on the rights of the child in immigration detention.

Child detention breaches UN convention: human rights report
A leaked final draft report by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) is calling for urgent changes to Australia's immigration detention laws.

Report recommends freeing child detainees
The Human Rights Commission has found that some children held in Australia's immigration detention centres have been exposed to cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment.

No more children for Baxter, pleads SA
The South Australian Government is urging the Commonwealth not to shift any more children into the Baxter detention centre in the state's north.

Nauru staff 'fear children are next'
Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone says women and children are sitting in on a hunger strike at the Nauru detention centre, but are not participating.

Fingerprints now required for US visas

Your profile on a a database a breach of your privacy

United States consulates in Australia have begun taking fingerprints from Australians applying for visas.

The embassy says the use of two fingerprints on visas adds to the international program of biometric face recognition being put into new passports.

[But there is a great risk the authorities will use your fingerprint profile to frame you.]

Australia's US consular coordinator Sylvia Johnson says the identity of Australian visa holders will be checked against a data base of the electronic fingerprints when they arrive in America.

"I can say the US Government is very strict and really protects the privacy of the information that they store on individuals, whether they are citizens of not. The US data bases are very, very closely held," she said.

[Just plain rubbish the US government are war criminals and very corrupt. No one should trust them at all.]

By Privacy 4 March 04

Related:

USA biometric passports: We won't be criminals for you!
The only looming rules are for fools, giving up personal details to the Devil in the first place, when visiting the US. This security check, fingerprint and photograph will ensure an exploitation bonanza for scapegoats and patsies blamed as terrorists, for the Coalition of the Killings resource war's in the Middle East and for, [war criminal], George Bush.

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Prisoners can prove innocence for $20?
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