Posted by admin on Apr 5th, 2010
April 5, 2010, Sydney Morning Herald
Iraqi refugees on hunger strike on Christmas Island. About 10 Iraqi detainees were pledging yesterday to maintain a hunger strike until death, in the latest eruption from distressed asylum seekers at the Christmas Island detention facilities. The incident comes a day after a larger group of more than 20 asylum seekers pledged a hunger strike, and a violent incident in which sources said a man punched and kicked a security guard. After a day of intermittent but heavy rain on the Indian Ocean island, nine men could be seen under unfurled banners in the high-technology detention centre at North-West Point. This morning the government will fly another charter plane of asylum seekers off the island. A source said they would include about 50 people whose claims for protection have been rejected.
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Posted by admin on Mar 24th, 2010
Globe and Mail, Wednesday, Mar. 24, 2010
Behind the fine eyeglasses of Charlotte Umutesi lie dark, withdrawn eyes. The 35-year-old elderly-care worker doesn’t speak much these days. When she does, she says she hardly eats and hardly sleeps, jolted awake night after night by nightmares of her past. She came to Canada five years ago as a refugee from Rwanda, fleeing a genocidaire she insists killed her husband, sister and parents. She claims the man beat her and sexually assaulted her, and has since attacked her brother after Ms. Umutesi testified against him in a tribunal. She fears he now wants to kill her, too.
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Posted by admin on Mar 20th, 2010
Australian Herald, Saturday 20th March, 2010
Switzerland has suspended all flights removing rejected asylum seekers after an asylum seeker on a hunger strike died in shackles on the tarmac at Zurich airport as he was being taken to the plane that would return him to Nigeria. The 29-year old man, a convicted drug dealer, had been on a hunger strike for several days. Swiss authorities have launched an investigation into the man’s death. Thirteen other Nigerians, who were being deported with the deceased, have accused the Swiss police of inhumane treatment.
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Posted by admin on Mar 18th, 2010
Melissa del Bosque, Texas Observer, March 18, 2010
On March 10, 2008, 39-year-old Rama Carty, who’d lived in the United States since he was a year old, became Alien #A30117515 in America’s booming immigrant detention system. At the time, Carty never imagined he’d be shipped to seven detention facilities around the country. Or that he’d help organize hunger strikes in South Texas’ Port Isabel Detention Center, 2,000 miles from his Boston home. Or that he would inspire an Amnesty International investigation into human rights abuses by the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
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Posted by admin on Mar 15th, 2010
Mark Dodd, The Australian, March 15, 2010 12:00AM
IMMIGRATION detention on Christmas Island has almost reached bursting point, with the arrival on Saturday of the 24th asylum-seeker boat this year. The 35 asylum-seekers on the boat intercepted northwest of Christmas Island are understood to be Afghans, and there were two Indonesian crew on board. All have been taken to Christmas Island. There are now only 151 spare beds for a facility designed for 800 but now accommodating 2042 people. This year 1121 asylum-seekers have arrived and 64 crew members have been arrested.
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