The Hindu : Woomera detention centre closed

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Apr 18, 2003

International

International

Woomera detention centre closed

SYDNEY: The remote detention centre that symbolised Australia's tough stance toward asylum seekers was officially closed on Thursday. Woomera, where detainees have sewed their lips together and held numerous hunger strikes to protest their isolation, was widely decried as a blight on Australia's human rights record, but the clampdown on illegal immigration helped win the Government a third term in office. At its peak, Woomera housed more than 1,400 illegal migrants who sought asylum in Australia after arriving, some of whom remained more than three years while they awaited processing or appeals. Many fled from conflict-plagued homelands in Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq aboard illegal boats. Howard Glenn, director of the human rights group A Just Australia, welcomed the centre's closure, hailing it as "the end of this era, a black chapter in Australia's history." The United Nations criticised conditions at the camp, and an all-party parliamentary committee in 2001 declared Woomera the worst of the country's seven detention centres.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

International

Stories in this Section

U.S. for lifting U.N. sanctions

Shia clerics filling power void

Powell to visit Syria soon for `candid talks'

E.U. settles for 'compromise' on Iraq

N. Ireland: U.K. forces colluded with loyalists?

Pope's concern over unacceptable practices

Woomera detention centre closed

Abu Abbas arrest: Just a hype?

SARS `spread' through sewage pipes

Trade, investment to dominate Lanka-Bangla talks

China's hand behind meet on North Korea

Russia denies additional screening for Indians

Pak. dismayed at burning of Baghdad library