Vantanamo

Let them go Amanda, there'll still be enough to eat.

Detainees driven to suicide, say advocates

September 11, 2005 - 4:36PM

Horrific conditions inside the Baxter detention centre in South Australia are driving more detainees to suicide, refugee advocates said today.

A 24-year-old man, believed to be from Zimbabwe, tried to kill himself yesterday by slitting his wrists and throat with broken glass from the door to his cell.

You remember Zimbabwe right?

""Australia calls upon the government of Zimbabwe to immediately halt the operation which continues to inflict suffering on Zimbabwe's most vulnerable people and allow all willing organisations to provide assistance to those in need,"

We care, we care a lot, just so long as we don't actually have to do anything to help.

"These things are very common when people have lost all hope and it makes the conditions very much worse," a Baxter inmate, who did not wish to be identified, told AAP.

The latest incident brings the total number of attempted suicides at Baxter to four in the past fortnight, according to the Rural Australians for Refugees (RAR) advocacy group.

"That's the estimated number of attempted suicides but there could be others we're not aware of," RAR spokeswoman Bernadette Wauchope said.

Ms Wauchope said conditions inside detention centres around Australia, including Baxter, were horrific and there was growing concern about the mental health of detainees.

Pamela Curr, spokeswoman for the Asylum Seekers Resource Centre, said the suicide problem in detention centres in Australia needed urgent attention by the federal government.

"There have been five suicide attempts on the mainland in detention in past week, I think it's a shocking indictment on the system," she said.

"Detainees are so distressed that they're attempting suicide, they see no way out."

Last week, a Bangladeshi man in the Perth detention centre overdosed on 20 tablets, possibly sleeping tablets.

Ms Curr said refugees become depressed after signing for visas then being forced to wait up to five years in detention.

"There needs to be faster processing of visas, people are waiting far too long for approvals," Ms Curr said.

A spokesman for the Immigration Minister, Amanda Vanstone, said moves were underway to get as many people out of detention in Australia as was practical.

However, the spokesman refused to comment about the spate of recent suicides.

The Department of Immigration Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (DIMIA) today said the man who attempted suicide at Baxter was in a stable condition in Port Augusta hospital.

"The department has a duty of care towards detainees [which] it takes seriously," a DIMIA spokesman said.

Presumably with a straight face.

The man, who was severely depressed, was found unconscious in his cell about 10.30pm (CST) and was still bleeding badly from his wrists when he was taken by ambulance to hospital, Ms Wauchope said.

"There were reports that he attempted to hang himself as well," she said.
"They knew how bad he was, so why wasn't he in hospital - they should've helped him sooner."

The man is believed to be the same person that last month accused a guard of breaking his ankle after standing up for a fellow inmate to protest about the quality of food at Baxter.

AAP

We take suicide very seriously we do. But only if you attempt it after sexually assaulting two women in front of witnesses and directing racist slurs at people and then watch your political career gurgle down the toilet. If you do that then no one'll describe your suicide attempt as "innapropriate behaviour" and imply you're an attention seeker. Fleeing torture or death just won't cut it I'm afraid.

Besides, we've sunk billions of dollars into our desert prisons, we can't stop doing it just because people are killing themselves. I mean it's not like we could be doing other things with that money. Look at it from the point of view of John Voter. He may not have actually seen an illegal immigrant in his life, but that doesn't mean the potential threat of 1000 foreigners isn't so great that he'll be willing to exchange cheaper healthcare or better schools for a pointless solution to a non existent threat. It makes him feel better. Then when we let them in, as we do with 98% of people in detention anyway, it'll all have been worth it.