LEST WE FORGET - HOWARD'S HELLHOLES

Footage from Curtin Immigration Detention Centre showing treatment of Afghani asylum seekers placed in 'separation detention' following their arrival in Australia ...

Full description

"Curtin Detention Camp was the most secret of all 'Australia’s Hellholes'.
New arrivals were placed in compounds isolated from everyone except those with whom they had arrived for up to 13 months. This was called 'separation detention'.
They had no access to information, newspapers, radio or TV. They could not contact family. They were not interviewed nor told for how long this situation would continue.

"The Afghani men and boys in this footage fled a massacre of Hazaras in Afghanistan. After a life- threatening journey they arrived in Curtin. Some became very ill. They were locked in empty rooms. There they became desperate.

"This video popped out of a camera and was picked up and thrown across a compound wall. Guards dug up gardens and tore up floor boards to find it. Months later a detainee emerged to freedom and brought this video with him.

"It has been publicly shown once before and provides rare insider footage of life in an 'Australian Hellhole."
Text supplied by Pamela Curr
Campaign Coordinator
Asylum Seeker Resource Centre ASRC

The following links provide background and comment:
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/s538958.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/stories/s538998.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/s537864.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/s541593.htm
http://www.ag.gov.au/agd/WWW/justiceministerHome.nsf/Page/
Media_Releases_2002_2nd_Quarter_23_April_2002_-_Response_to_Lateline_program
_and_Curtin_Detention_Centre_video