Refugee supporters will hold a protest outside the Downing Street Centre, tomorrow, 9.00am Tuesday 27 April.<\/p>\n
Inside the court, at 9.30am there will be a \u201cmention hearing\u201d of charges against the Australian government and the detention medical services provider over the suicide death of an Iraqi man in Villawood in 2019.<\/p>\n
The charges \u2013 the first ever regarding a detainee death \u2013 are being laid against the government by the government\u2019s own Work Health and Safety watchdog, Comcare, following an investigation into the health care relating to the Iraqi man\u2019s death.<\/p>\n
The charges allege that Home Affairs and IMHS failed \u2018to comply with [its] health\/safety duty and that exposes (sic) an individual to a risk of injury or death\/serious injury\u2019.<\/p>\n
The case has the potential to expose the details of abuse and medical neglect that damages mental health and pushes detainees to take their own lives.<\/p>\n
The charges against the Commonwealth regarding detention come years too late. In just the few months before the WHS Act was introduced (1 January 2012), there were five suicides in Australia’s detention regime. <\/p>\n
And the investigation came too late to prevent the most recent suicide in Villawood in December 2020. <\/p>\n
\u201cDetention centres, and IHMS in particular, are notorious for the lack of care available inside Australia\u2019s detention regime \u2013 onshore and offshore,\u201d said Ian Rintoul, spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe prosecution of the government and IHMS is very welcome. Neither Ministers of Immigration, the government nor IHMS has ever been held accountable to the courts for their mistreatment of detainees.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are looking forward to the details of the negligence alleged by Comcare being publicly exposed in court. For too long the abuses in detention have been hidden behind a wall of secrecy. <\/p>\n
“But the key to saving lives, and preventing the mental health distress is to abolish \u2018the factories for mental illness\u2019 and end the detention business altogether.”<\/p>\n
For more information contact Ian Rintoul 0417 275 713<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Refugee supporters will hold a protest outside the Downing Street Centre, tomorrow, 9.00am Tuesday 27 April. Inside the court, at 9.30am there will be a \u201cmention hearing\u201d of charges against the Australian government and the detention medical services provider over the suicide death of an Iraqi man in Villawood in 2019. The charges \u2013 the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":311091,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[27,17,16],"class_list":["post-15885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-press-releases","tag-det","tag-detention","tag-villawood"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t