A 17 year-old female asylum-seeker due to be deported to Malaysia has attempted suicide in Christmas Island\u2019s Bravo compound.<\/p>\n
Reports from Christmas Island indicate that the girl made the attempt around 1pm Christmas Island time (4pm AEST) while in the complex\u2019s medical centre, where she had been taken as a result of her participation in the hunger strike and protest by asylum seekers facing deportation to Malaysia.<\/p>\n
The girl is understood to have poisoned herself by drinking the contents of medicine and other bottles in the medical centre. She is now in hospital, along with her 7 year-old brother.<\/p>\n
“If we needed any further confirmation of the brutality of the Malaysia swap this is it,” said Ian Rintoul, spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition. “Julia Gillard\u2019s willingness to trash the Refugee Convention and people trade with Malaysia is destroying is asylum seekers\u2019 lives.”<\/p>\n
“Bowen and Gillard continue to resort to forced deportation of vulnerable people will inevitable mean more of the tragic kinds of event we saw this afternoon. The government needs to stop playing with human lives and meet its human rights obligations under international law.”<\/p>\n
“This afternoon\u2019s events make a mockery of the government\u2019s previous denial that asylum seekers weren\u2019t even protesting against the deportations. It\u2019s time for Bowen and Gillard to end the Christmas Island cover-up and start telling the public the truth about asylum seekers,” said Rintoul.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe welcome the High Court\u2019s temporary injunction of the deportation of asylum seekers under the Malaysia Agreement. But that temporary stay must be become permanent.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis suicide attempt shows the vicious and inexcusable reality of what Australia is doing. The Malaysia swap should be abandoned immediately as the first step towards ending off-shore processing and mandatory detention.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Refugee Action Coalition has called an emergency protest, Monday 8 August, 12.30, at Sydney\u2019s Immigration offices, 26 Lee Street, City.<\/p>\n
For more information, contact Ian Rintoul 0417 275 713<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A 17 year-old female asylum-seeker due to be deported to Malaysia has attempted suicide in Christmas Island\u2019s Bravo compound. Reports from Christmas Island indicate that the girl made the attempt around 1pm Christmas Island time (4pm AEST) while in the complex\u2019s medical centre, where she had been taken as a result of her participation in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":311091,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1173","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-press-releases"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/311091"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1173\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}