Asylum seekers at the Woomera detention centre in South Australia are continuing their resistance to the Liberal government's draconian policies. Many detainees have sewn their lips together and are refusing food, several drank shampoo and 15 have attempted suicide. This comes after 3 days of rioting last December and the death of a women at the Villawood detention centre in Sydney. More than 30 detainees at the Maribyrnong detention centre in Melbourne are also on a hunger strike in solidarity with those at Woomera.

On Thursday hundreds rallied and occupied the Department of Immigration in Melbourne. See pictures here.

Members of the Refugee Action Collective continue a nationwide tour to raise awareness about the suffering of those interned in the camps. A coalition of groups is preparing to converge on the opening of parliament in Canberra on February 12 and major protests are planned in Woomera at Easter.

Listen to a Woomera report on Democracy Now -

 http://stream.realimpact.org/rihurl.ram?file=webactive/demnow/dn20020123.ra&start=


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Woomera bus trip report.

There's a core group of 13 people on the bus;
3 people got off in Adelaide,3 new people got on to travel with us to Woomera.This detention centre or concentration camp wich is the only thing that the Woomera detention centre can be called was to prove impossible to get into.This place has different laws apply to it as it is to be found not only on Commonwealth Land as most of the other centres are but this one also comes under the Dept of Defence so to get access to the land that the centre is on you have to have permission from the Dept of Defence,also one
needs permission from Australasian Correctional
Management.

We have visited Villawood detention centre and had
access to the detainees,we have visited Marybyrnong,and had access to the detainees,and then we tried to visit Woomera,NO ACCESS.Total
Lock-Down.Only Legal representatives allowed
access,wich can change at any time,one Catholic priest and one Catholic nun that can run a church service once a week.Loving kind people who choose to stay silent as to be able to keep access to the
detainees.Any one that works for ACM* or the Dept. of Immigration has to sign a life long contract of
silence. ACM can and does change the access rules at whim. ACM can and did refuse access to the Red Cross in our presence.ACM has the power to cancel solicitors access to their clients.ACM can and does stop the Red
Cross from going into Woomera detention centre where
there are at present around 800 detainees 250 of those
being young children 52 of those being children
between the ages of 9 and 16 who are unaccompanied by
any adult.these children live 15 to a dorm,sometimes
brothers and sisters being separated,which leads to
huge trauma for the eldest child who feels wholly
responsible for the safety of their younger
sibling.These are the things that mainstream media
doesnt hear about as all media releases come from the
Dept of Immigration.There is no press access to
Woomera,so all that they can print is what they
receive from the Dept.We are bearing witness to the
crimes that are being committed onto mainly innocent
women and children whose only crime is to come from a
culture that is foreing to our own,whose homeland has
been systematically destroyed for the past 20 years.Most of these people

would never have considered abandoning their land,their families,their

culture,familiar sights and smells where it not for the brutalities being

carried out against them in their homelands.Whenever
one people invade another there is always displacement of population.This
is
what the World is experiencing,and Australia like the rest of the World
has
to address this issue.All other western countries have a short detention

period of around 6 weeks,while
the proper checks are made,after this the refugees are
processed and placed within the communities where full
support can be given by many organisations.In Australia we detain them

indefinetly.Just recently a Chinese family was released from Port Headland

after being the longest detainees,5 years in detention.Two
young children one born in detention.
LOCK-DOWN...what does this mean?...No phone calls, no
letters, no visitors, no contact.
WOOMERA....175 kilometres from nowhere, 40-45 degrees
heat. No trees, no shade. Woomera, the largest
detention centre in Australia. ACM guards are rotated
on a six-week basis. Conditions are hard on them
aswell. Most of the guards don't live at Woomera, so
the town remains partially a ghost town.
A sticker from Woomera proclaims: "WOOMERA. THE BEST
KEPT SECRET IN AUSTRALIA." ...uhmmm...
We arrived at Woomera after 3 days of consulting with Woomera detainees, lawyers, church organisations, community groups. We had been adviced to delay our presence at the gates of the detention centre by a
team of solicitors that are working to assist the
detainees with their cases. They had access to the
detainees at that weekend, and they adviced us, that our presence would jeopardise their visiting rights.

We arrived at Woomera on Monday and decided to hold an all-night vigil in solidarity with the people inside. The news that reached us earlier that day, about the young Vietnamese student who tragically took her life at Villawood Migrants detention centre was a further catalyst for us to maintain the vigil.

We could hear the voices of the detainees, even though ACM tried to drown their voices by playing loud music through their PA system. We flew kites and helium balloons as high as we could, intersected with glow sticks, creating a magical sight in an otherwise hostile drab environment. We found out the next day, that the people inside had seen them, and they thanked us for our presence. We could hear the people inside
screaming, some of their callings pleading for help could be heard through the night. There is nothing more impotent than being present to this and not being able to do anything about it. The next morning the ACM guard returned the kite that had flown free through the
desert sky. It was 2 days before we heard that 51 one people inside Woomera had sewn their lips together.

We have arrived at Perth yesterday. Today we joined local refugee activists at Perth detention centre, to protest at the conditions in the centres. Perth
detention centre, another ACM run facility, is
designed to keep people in the lock-up for 24 hours. Some refugees have been in the lock-up from anything up to 3 years. For the first time we were greeted by all the mainstream media who showed an interest in the FREEDOM bus' journey.
The journey continues...

Mari-Luz Robey, Freedom Bus


(*ACM= Australasian Corrections Management, a Wackenhutt Subsidury)

for more up to date info check out ;

 http://www.melbourne.indymedia.org/
 http://adelaide.indymedia.org.au/