[Greens-Media] Hunger strikers bake on tin roof while Minister ignores their pleas

[Edwards, Jon (Sen K. Nettle)]

16.12.04

Hunger strikers bake on tin roof while Minister ignores their pleas


Greens Senator Kerry Nettle today called on Immigration Minister Amanda
Vanstone to agree to review the asylum claims of the Iranian detainees
including the 25 currently on hunger strike in Baxter Detention Centre.

"Amanda Vanstone must act now to save these men and all their
compatriots from the deadly situation that their long and harsh
incarceration has left them in," Senator Nettle said.

"This situation is now life or death. The Minister must act now to
ensure there is no tragic death as a result of her intransigence.

"The three desperate men on a tin roof at Baxter are in particular
danger. Temperatures are soaring into the high 30s and set to reach over
40 degrees by the weekend, and these men are getting weaker by the day.

"The fact is that these asylum seekers have been driven into dangerous
desperation by their long harsh detention and the threat of the
deportation to face persecution in Iran.

"These men need urgent independent psychiatric assessments and must have
their cases reviewed by the department in light of the deteriorating
political situation in Iran, their own deteriorating mental condition.

"When innocent men are willing to die in these detention camps in an
effort to get justice then it should be obvious to all that the
mandatory detention regime is cruel and inhume policy which must be
abolished.

The Greens will be joining protests and vigils around the country on
Friday and Saturday in solidarity with the hunger strikers calling for
the release of asylum seekers from the government's prisons."

Contact Jon Edwards - 0428 213 146