Woomera Lawyers Fear Easter Protest Will Harm Detainees
The Sunday Age
Sunday March 24, 2002
Lawyers for detainees at Woomera are dissociating themselves from a planned mass Easter protest, asking protesters to reconsider.
Port Pirie lawyer Paul Boylan, one of the lawyers who represent the detainees, said the group was concerned the protest could incite a response from those inside, including further incidents of self-harm or outbreaks of violence.
"Protest behaviour is infectious and I am sure it will get inside the centre," Mr Boylan said. ``Hopefully, it will remain at hunger strikes or chanting or digging graves, but I feel if there is a large group of people engaging in civil disobedience that is infectious. It is a bad example to set."
A coalition of protesters, including anti-globalisation activists, anti-nuclear protesters and indigenous rights protesters, and those opposing mandatory detention of asylum seekers are planning to converge on Woomera over the Easter weekend. Civil disobedience is being planned, including attempts to breach the exclusion zone around the centre and possibly the centre's walls.
Organisers say about 1500 people will camp at Woomera, and the Woomera2002 coalition's website is offering extensive legal advice on what to do if arrested.
Mr Boylan said his group would not be there at Easter and asked the protesters to think carefully about what they were doing. The only hope for individual detainees was to work through legal and administrative structures, he said.
"The infectious nature of civil disobedience is of concern because it would not fare well for any of the detainees if violence broke out in the centre over that weekend," he said.
Mr Boylan said the stated intention of the protesters to break the law would reflect back on the detainees even though the protests involved other issues, including indigenous land rights, uranium mining and the proposed South Australian nuclear waste dump.
However, a number of protesters who intend going to Woomera questioned the lawyers' view and said they would go ahead with their plans.
Since the end of a second Woomera hunger strike a week ago, some detainees have been lying in symbolic graves inside the compound. A detainee contacted this week said a woman burnt during an act of self-harm the week before was being treated at the Woomera health centre and had not been reunited with her children, aged two and 11. Another woman who tried to hang herself had not returned, he said.
One protester, Tom Barnes, said the lawyers' concerns were being taken seriously but the protest would go ahead.
Mr Barnes, a Melbourne-based member of the International Socialists Organisation, said he believed future acts of self-harm could be prevented if detainees knew there were protesters who supported them.
``These are acts of desperation," he said. ``If those inside make ongoing connections with those on the outside it is less likely those things will happen."
Mr Barnes said he believed it would be worse to do nothing.
Angela Mitropoulos, of the XBorders anti-detention group, queried the lawyers' logic.
``So we should pretend that there's nobody protesting against the detention centres?" she asked. ``My response is that if they (the government) stopped treating people like this, there'd be no emotional response (inside the camp)," Ms Mitropoulos said.
``There have been protests inside ever since the detention centre was built. As far as XBorders have been concerned, we've always been careful not to communicate with people (in the camps) in such a way that they are targeted," she added.
Ms Mitropoulos said up to 600 people were expected to go to Woomera from Melbourne. ``I think that Melbourne's really going to be the bulk (of protesters)."
She said that almost all the protests at Woomera would relate directly to immigration issues, although a side group was planning an anti-nuclear protest at Roxby Downs.
Damien Lawson, from the No One is Illegal group, said self-harm and violent reactions from detainees were not the fault of ``lawyers, protesters or the media - it's the camp itself".
He said that alongside peaceful prayer groups and other passive protests, his group and other protesters would enter the exclusion zone and possibly try to breach the walls.
``To suggest that we are responsible for people inside is to remove those people's agency," he said.
The Sydney arm of the Refugee Action Collective, which is also planning to go to Woomera, issued a statement this week claiming that detainees wanted the protest to go ahead.
It quoted an Iranian detainee as saying: ``We will start our protest again on the inside so we will be together, protesting inside and outside."
A government spokesman said the protest plans were being monitored ``to ensure any protest action doesn't disrupt the normal operations of the centre".
"Detainees involved in the protest action are advised that such action will in no way assist their claims to remain in Australia," he said.
SUNDAY FORUM 19: Partisan
© 2002 The Sunday Age