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Melbourne, Australia – After at least one COVID-19 case was officially confirmed in a Melbourne facility, Australian activists urged the government to release asylum seekers in immigration detention.
Australia’s second largest city, Melbourne, is currently under lockdown for the sixth time due to the coronavirus outbreak caused by the highly contagious delta virus.
On Saturday, 450 new cases were reported across Victoria. On Friday, at least 299 of the 334 reported cases were from Melbourne and surrounding areas.
Several activists and asylum seekers told Al Jazeera that at least two guards had tested positive, and dozens of guards were presumed to be in quarantine because they had not gone to work in recent days.
However, the Australian Border Force (ABF) stated that only one staff member was confirmed to have the disease. ABF told Al Jazeera that this person was a contracted service provider for the Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation (MITA) Broad Meadows Residential District (BRP) and “has not had contact with the detainee as part of his duties”.
The bunk beds are squeezed into a room in the Avon compound, which is one of several facilities maintained by the Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation (MITA) authorities [Refugee Action Coalition]An MITA detainee who asked not to be named expressed concern to Al Jazeera for their health and safety, saying that as many as five people live in some rooms of the facility, which is divided into several different areas.
The BRP unit has as many as four bedrooms, connected to a small kitchen, which is quite spacious. In contrast, Avon’s room is another compound with bunk beds that can accommodate up to 6 people.
He said that although ABF provided detainees with masks and disinfectants, it did not conduct extensive testing for the virus.
“Unless we develop symptoms, they will not test us for COVID,” the detainee said. “This means that until many people get sick, they won’t actually know if it’s spreading. It can travel fast. Guards can come and go freely.”
COVID hot spots
The private company that provided staff for the detention facility referred the issue of Al Jazeera to ABF.
The Border Force stated that the health and safety of detainees and staff is a top priority, and since the beginning of the pandemic, it has been working with state health departments to develop “strict” COVID-19 protection measures.
ABF stated: “It is untrue that infection prevention measures in immigration detention facilities are lax or rarely untrue.”
Prisons and detention centers around the world have become hot spots for COVID-19 infection, and some countries have released some detained people to reduce the risk of infection.
The Australian Human Rights Commission described COVID-19 as a “serious threat” to the 1,492 people held in the Australian immigration detention network.
In a report in June, the committee stated that the government should place “people with lower security risks in a community-based alternative to closed detention”.
It also stated that the authorities should improve the physical distance of detention facilities and pay special attention to the dozens of people who are determined to be particularly vulnerable to the disease due to their underlying health conditions.
“They did not commit a crime”
Approximately 239 people are being held in MITA, which activists describe as “crowded” conditions.
The committee added that many asylum seekers who live there have health problems.
A source at the facility told Al Jazeera that only half of the people in his compound had received the first dose of the vaccine in the past week. He said there are about 60 people in his facility.
Sadaf Ismail, the Detention Rights Advocacy Project Manager of the Asylum Seeker Resource Center, who has clients in MITA, said that asylum seekers should be released immediately because it is impossible to maintain social distancing in the facility.
The detainees “are very close to each other… how can they provide this isolation?” she said.
She added that considering the risks, the government must completely release all asylum seekers.
“They didn’t commit a crime,” she said.
Advocates for asylum seekers say that infection prevention measures in immigration detention facilities have been ineffective throughout the pandemic.
“I am now told that we may see guards wearing masks [and]…They wear gloves occasionally, but it is not common,” said Ian Rintoul, a spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition (RAC), who maintains contact with people in various immigration detention facilities.
However, the Australian Border Service stated that the allegations of lax or minimal measures in immigration detention were “untrue”. It stated that the ABF and the Ministry of the Interior “have adopted strict infection control plans and measures in accordance with relevant health recommendations.”
“To date, no detainee in the immigration detention network has tested positive for COVID-19,” it added, but did not elaborate on the scale of the testing program or how many people have been tested.
Vaccination campaigns for asylum seekers started in August, while Australian citizens started vaccinating in February.
MITA detainees stated that the launch of the Melbourne facility only started last week.
“Given the lack of goodwill, overall secrecy and hostile behavior from the Immigration Department, it is terrible to have to trust them,” he said.
“We are trapped here, knowing that they don’t care much about our welfare…
“The isolation facility in detention is really basic, just like a prison… If we are free, we can choose our own independent doctor, and we can eliminate our fears.”
Years of mistrust have made refugees and asylum seekers detained in MITA feel anxious and suspicious.
The threat of coronavirus has made the situation worse.
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