PORT MORESBY (ABC Radio / Pacific Media Watch): More damaging media exposés have emerged of alleged assault, torture and rape threats against asylum seekers by security guards in a secret compound inside Australia's Manus Island deportation centre.
The Australian government has also admitted the existence of the secret compound, known as Chauka, which has been mentioned in leaked reports for some time.
Journalist Mandie Sami reported for ABC Radio today that an asylum seeker, who has been given the pseudonym of "Mike", had come forward to say that Wilson Security and Transfield guards and Transfield had taken him and one other asylum seeker to a secret compound in the centre called Chauka.
For three and four days respectively, the men were threatened with rape and deportation unless they recanted his testimony about the killing of Iranian asylum seeker Reza Barati earlier this year.
"We were not meant to expose it because they said to us, 'you shouldn't tell anyone. If you tell anyone we will take you to Chauka again and after getting raped we will deport you'," he said. 'But we need to expose it... I really don't care what's going to happen. If they want to kill me, threaten me or beat me... I have to expose the truth. I have nightmares and I have mental problems. At night time I cry because of what happened in Chauka...I have lots of panic attacks, I have anxiety. My condition is getting worse every day. They tied us, they beat us, they threatened us to get raped..."
The men were asked to sign papers that they were not allowed to read:
"We said 'we're not going to sign it'. And they said 'if you don't sign it we're going to get locals to rape you because you are the ones who want to explain in the court and be witnesses against Australia and PNG'. "We didn't have any other solution so we accepted it".
ABC Radio quoted a spokesperson for Immigration Minister Scott Morrison rejecting the allegations as "exaggerated", and saying that asylum seekers were often moved within the deportation centre "for operational reasons including for their safety and wellbeing and the safety and wellbeing of others".
Ben Pynt, of Humanitarian Research Partners, a non-profit human organisation, is currently advocating on behalf of the two asylum seekers with with the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR).
But ABC Radio reported that the Australian Federal Police had simply referred Pynt back to the Papua New Guinea police.
Pynt urged the public not to believe the Australian government:
"Quite frankly, I don't believe the Minister and neither should the Australian public. The Minister's denial has no factual basis. He hasn't responded to any of the individual claims and he hasn't asked an independent person to find out what happened. It's very simple for Mr Morrison to deny that anything has taken place. It's very easy for us to prove the opposite, and in the fullness of time I am confident that these claims will be borne out to be true."
Six weeks ago, Humanitarian Research Partners was leaked security reports written by Transfield Services which they passed on to the media. The reports revealed a high suicide attempt rate, with 14 asylum seekers being placed on suicide watch every day.
Meanwhile, a new campaign called "End the Queer lockdown on Manus Island" has been started by Australian activists after it emerged that gay asylum seekers in the Manus Island deportation centre were being tortured, subjected to attempted rape and being humiliated.
Many of the gay asylum seekers fled their home countries because of homophobia and now face forced resettlement in Papua New Guinea, where homosexuality is a crime punishable by 14 years in prison.
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