by MAX NEWMAN
Asylum-seekers look through a fence at the Manus Island detention centre in Papua New Guinea March 21, 2014 PHOTO/Eoin Blackwell/AAP/Reuters/
The Australian government has settled a class action lawsuit, agreeing to pay $70 million to 1,905 current and former detainees in the Australian-run refugee prison camp on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea, as well as legal costs estimated at $20 million.
The June 14 settlement sought to continue covering up the crimes committed against refugees by successive Australian governments. It prevented the case from going to trial, which would have involved a detailed exposure, in a televised open court, of the abuses at the detention centre.
Corporate media outlets described the outcome as possibly the largest human rights settlement in Australian history. Yet the payments will average only around $36,000 for each claimant, a pitiful sum considering what they have suffered.
Moreover, many of them remain detained, and the entire system of illegally repelling asylum seekers or confining them indefinitely in remote hell holes in violation of international refugee law survives intact.
The settlement proceeds will be split according to how long each person spent at the centre, the injuries they received and whether they were present during particular events, such as a February 2014 attack by soldiers and security guards on prisoners protesting inside the camp in which one detainee Reza Barati, was killed and 77 others injured.
The case was taken to the Supreme Court of Victoria by the law firm Slater and Gordon, on behalf of all persons who were imprisoned on Manus Island between 21 November 2012 and 12 May 2016.
Slater and Gordon class action group leader Rory Walsh acknowledged some detainees would be displeased by the settlement, but said they could petition the court if they wished to continue with a separate case.
Sudanese asylum seeker Abdul Aziz Muhamat told Australian Associated Press that detainees were considering rejecting the settlement. “People are saying ‘we’ve actually been in this place for four years and we have got physical damage and mental damage and this small amount of money won’t do anything to help us’.”
These abuses are a deliberate bipartisan policy, designed to deter or prevent refugees from seeking protection in Australia.
The Manus Island facility was first opened, together with the equally brutal camp on the Pacific island of Nauru, more than 15 years ago by the Howard Liberal-National government as part of its “Pacific Solution” to stop asylum seekers, fleeing wars and persecution, reaching Australia. In 2012, the camps were reopened by the Greens-backed Labor government of Julia Gillard, and the current Liberal-National government has maintained them since 2013.
The lawsuit was directed at the Commonwealth of Australia, as well as G4S and Transfield (now Broadspectrum), which hold government contracts to operate the detention centre. The main plaintiff was Majid Karami Kamasaee, a refugee from Iran who suffered severe pain and irritation to his skin from pre-existing burns while forcibly imprisoned for 11 months on Manus Island, after his boat was seized by the Australian Navy in August 2013.
According to Richard Ackland, writing in the Guardian, Slater and Gordon lawyers appeared in court more than 50 times before the settlement was agreed, opposing government moves to shut the case down or exclude evidence. At every stage, the government sought to maintain secrecy over the maltreatment and denial of basic rights to the detainees.
There were repeated challenges claiming Public Interest Immunity, seeking to block testimony or evidence that would supposedly endanger national security or the “public interest.”
The plaintiffs’ lawyers also confronted the Border Force Act 2015, passed with bipartisan support. The Act made it illegal, punishable by up to two years’ imprisonment, for anyone, including health care professionals who worked at the centre, to publicly reveal the conditions suffered by the asylum seekers.
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