Early on the morning of Saturday 5 April more than 100 refugee supporters tried to stop the transfer of 45 asylum seekers from Villawood detention centre in Sydney to Curtin and Yongah Hill detention centres in Western Australia. Up to 50 asylum seekers inside had organised a sit-in and hunger strike to resist the transfers. Saturday’s action outside the centre followed a similar protest the previous day where eight people were arrested.
Curtin and Yongah Hill are known to be two of the most inhospitable of Australia’s mainland detention centres. Both are notorious for their isolation and limited communication facilities.
Protest spokeswoman, Clo Schofield, said that transferring the asylum seekers to remote parts of the country was an intentional move by the immigration department to distance the refugees from their legal advisers and to avoid public scrutiny of their conditions. A number of the refugees concerned are currently involved in legal proceedings against the department.
The blockade was ultimately unsuccessful. After police viciously cleared a physical path through the protest, two coaches carrying asylum seekers left Villawood mid-morning.
The final indignity was the decision to draw the curtains on the buses so that asylum seekers were unable to see their friends and supporters as they were hauled off to one the Australian government’s desert gulags.
