PORT MORESBY (Sydney Morning Herald / ABC / Fars News / Sunday Star Times / Pacific Media Watch): More whistleblowers have come forward to highlight shocking conditions at Australia's Manus Island deportation centre, following the death last week of another asylum seeker.
Iranian asylum seeker Hamid Kehazaei died of septicaemia last week in a Brisbane hospital three weeks after cutting his foot in the centre.
Refugee Action Coalition spokesman Ian Rintoul told ABC News that Kehazaei "sought medical attention for days on Manus Island for the pain and infection" before eventually being flown to a hospital in Brisbane.
The 24-year-old man had a heart attack before being declared brain dead, ABC reported.
According to Fars News, Rintoul said raw sewage flowing through the camp was to blame for Kehazaei's foot becoming infected.
Whistleblower guard Beau Mitchell told ABC that living standards were "quite filthy", and provided the broadcaster with a video showing the conditions inside the deportation centre.
Another unnamed person featured in ABC video the said septicaemia was "a condition which, in a civilised society, should not lead to the death of a young man".
Leaked reports
Last week, security reports written by Transfield Services, which runs security and catering in the centre, were leaked to refugee advocates Humanitarian Research Partners (HRP) who passed them on to the media.
The reports revealed a high suicide attempt rate, with 14 asylum seekers being placed on suicide watch every day.
"They report that 'major incidents' are happening almost every day at the centre, including fights between detainees, attacks against guards, self-harm and suicide attempts," reported ABC.
The leaked reports also exposed the existence of a previously unknown "isolation unit" called Chauka, where "non-compliant" detainees were taken.
The first Iranian asylum seeker to die in the Manus Island detention centre on February 17 was Reza Barati, who was killed in a riot. For weeks afterwards, it was not clear who was responsible with the Australian and Papua New Guinean governments blaming each other. Eventually, two Papua New Guinean and two expatriate guards were implicated in Barati's death.
Last weekend, the Sunday Star-Times newspaper tracked down one of the expatriate guards, New Zealander Anton Piek, who denied assaulting seven asylum seekers, including Barati, during the February 17 riot.
Piek, who was a prison guard in South Africa before migrating to New Zealand in 2007, told the newspaper he "did what I had to do" but denied beating anyone, alleging that the asylum seekers were armed and had "murderous expressions" in their eyes during the riot.
Prison supervisor
But witnesses told investigators after the riot that Piek, who is now a supervisor at a New Zealand prison, beat asylum seekers, including Barati, "with force".
Iran's deputy prime minister, Hassan Qashqavi, has slammed the Australian government for mistreating refugees on Manus Island.
The death of a second Iranian refugee being held in the Manus Island deportation centre has apparently prompted the Australian government to begin a process of closing it down.
A recent change made to the Migration Act now stipulates that "unauthorised maritime arrivals" should be taken to the Nauru centre instead.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 New Zealand Licence.
Pacific Media Watch
