The Australian Prime Minister is continuing to take his hardline stance regarding hunger-striking asylum seekers. The protest is taking place at a controversial desert detention centre.
John Howard said that he was determined to keep boatpeople off Australian shores. He was speaking publicly for the first time since asylum seekers at the Woomera camp began sewing their lips shut in protest at his government's attitude to illegal immigrants.
Mr Howard said, in a television interview, that he did not like detaining people, but there was no alternative if his government was to control the flow of people into the country.
Around 200, mainly Afghan, asylum seekers have been on hunger strike at the Woomera camp for 10 days to protest the months, if not years, it takes to process their asylum claims. Around 45 have sewn their mouths shut by threading a symbolic strand of cotton through their lips, while several detainees have tried to hang themselves with bed sheets. Others have swallowed shampoo and painkillers.
The Australian government has refused to release details regarding 15 more people who tried to harm themselves. However, refugee groups say that "horrible things" are happening at the camp.
Cyrus Sarang, head of pressure group Refugee Action Collective, said that he had received a telephone call from a camp inmate saying protesters were slashing themselves with knives. "Many of them are trying to hang themselves, kill themselves or cut themselves," the asylum seeker told Mr Sarang, asking not to be identified.
In stark contrast to the Prime Minister's stance, representatives of Australian Aborigines have offered the protesters political asylum. The Aboriginal tent embassy in Canberra, 30 years old this week, labelled the detention centres "concentration camps". Officials said that they made the asylum offer in light of the "callous and inhumane" treatment at the camps.
The government's refusal to take on 400 mainly Afghan asylum seekers who were rescued by a Norwegian ship last year sparked international controversy and condemnation. However, Mr Howard's uncompromising attitude ensured his romp home to a third term in office, though many Australians have been shocked or outraged by the lip-sewing and attempted hangings at Woomera.
Around 8,000 boatpeople have arrived in Australia in the past two years, a small number by international comparisons. But the island continent of 19.3 million people also takes in 10,000 refugees a year formally resettled by the United Nations, and another 50,000 permanent migrants, mainly from Britain and New Zealand.
