Protests flare across Australia against the arbitrary internment
of asylum seekers and undocumented migrants

                        Australia - Monday, August 28, 2000.

                        Rioting asylum seekers today burned down buildings at the Woomera
                   detention centre following a weekend of trouble during which inmates
                   were sprayed with tear gas after stoning staff.

                        Protesting detainees began chanting and causing damage to the
                   centre on Friday night, with the noise able to be heard at least five
                   kilometres away.

                        Water-cannons and tear gas have been used against prisoners in
                   the refugee internment camp at Woomera in Western Australia in an
                   attempt to put down protests that began early in the morning.
                        Reports filtering out indicate that 80 rioters have so far
                   destroyed four buildings including the recreation building, dining
                   room, school and ablution block.

                        Federal Immigration Minister, Philip Ruddock, has claimed that
                   stones were thrown at security staff.   According to the Minister,
                   "The fences have been breached, they have taken pickets from the
                   fences and using them as weapons. They have been stoning the
                   administration building."

                        Local service station operator David Kirby says the protest has
                   been building for a couple of days.  "They've been building a
                   secondary fence to keep them all in, and they've been pulling that
                   down everytime the workers have been putting it up," he said.

                        On Saturday, August 26th, protests were held outside the Perth,
                   Villawood (in Sydney) and Maribyrnong (in Melbourne) internment camps
                   calling for the camps to be shut down and the internees to be
                   released.

                        This follows a series of mass escapes from three remote
                   internment camps (Woomera, Port Hedland and Curtin) in mid-June this
                   year when over 700 internees escaped to make their way to town
                   centres to stage protests in order to break out of their political
                   and geographic isolation.

                        Prisoners in Woomera -- as in the other refugee internment camps
                   -- have been incarcerated without charge, without trial, without any
                   ability to access the courts to review the length or merit of their
                   incarceration. Most of those held at Woomera have been there for over
                   seven months, most of whom face the prospect of being forcibly
                   returned to Iran, Afghanistan and Iraq.

                        This is Australia's system of 'mandatory and non-reviewable
                   detention', where anyone who arrives by boat without papers seeking
                   asylum is automatically imprisoned.   Since January, and after
                   increasing restrictions on who may eventually qualify for a visa, the
                   small proportion of those who are granted visas can only, at best,
                   look forward to a 3-year "temporary protection visa", with limited
                   access to welfare and health care.

                        Australia's is the only western government that practices a
                   system of automatic and non-reviewable incarceration.  It also
                   receives and grants fewer applications for asylum, both on and
                   offshore, than any other western country.

                        On the eve of the Sydney Olympics and the World Economic Forum's
                   Asia-Pacific Session in Melbourne, as the Federal Parliament debates
                   a bill that will give the army 'shoot to kill powers' against
                   dissent, it has become clear that the only movement that is not
                   subject to repression is that of money -- tourism, trade and meetings
                   of corporate executives.

                        Whilst the Minister for Immigration argued that those who were
                   engaged in the protests would no longer be able to apply for asylum
                   under the provisions that require applicants for visas be "of good
                   character", no one has attempted to stop Bill Gates' entry into
                   Australia as he prepares to speak at the World Economic Forum,
                   despite the fact that he, as head of Microsoft, has been found guilty
                   of breaking anti-trust laws in the US.

                        Calls for policy review

                        The director of the Australian Refugee Association, Kevin Liston,
                   says the trouble at Woomera shows a review of Federal Government
                   policy on the handling of illegal immigrants is warranted.   "We as a
                   nation need to look again at whether we do need to detain in remote
                   areas in spartan conditions all those people who come to us, albeit
                   without our permission, but nevertheless as refugees," he said.

                        The Australian Democrats say the riot at the centre is not
                   surprising given the Federal Government's hardline attitude. Senator
                   Andrew Bartlett says the Government has tried to make the stay of
                   illegal immigrants as uncomfortable as possible to discourage others
                   from coming to Australia illegally.  "If you treat people like that
                   then sometimes, as one can see with a history of prisons in Australia
                   and around the world, if you overdo that sort of thing then you're
                   almost guaranteeing unrest," he said. "Particularly when you've got
                   people who have have experienced some of the suffering that these
                   people have.