Asylum seekers are angry and upset at the death last night (Thursday) of an Afghan asylum seeker in the Villawood detention centre.<\/p>\n
According to witnesses inside the detention centre, Serco guards left Ali on the ground for almost an hour before calling an ambulance.<\/p>\n
He was taken from the centre around 7.30pm and died later that night.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is every reason to believe that Ali would still be alive, if Serco guards had responded immediately to the first signs that he was in distress,\u201d said Ian Rintoul, spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition.<\/p>\n
\u201cGuards ignored his initial calls for help, and it was left to other detainees to appeal to the guards to call an ambulance.\u201d<\/p>\n
One distressed asylum seeker called to the Refugee Action Coalition last night saying, \u201cThey have killed Ali.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Refugee Action Coalition is demanding a full inquiry into Ali\u2019s death and the allegations that he was left unattended. If Ali\u2019s obvious medical distress was ignored, his death is a version of industrial manslaughter, or worse. No-one who knew Ali was aware of any pre-existing heart condition,\u201d said Rintoul.<\/p>\n
\u201cAli should never have been in detention. He was in community detention and brought back into detention around September last year on false claims that he had been convicted of an offence in Britain. Even when a police clearance was obtained from Britain in May this year, the Immigration Department refused to act on it and release him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe detention regime fosters an institutional indifference to asylum seekers \u2013an indifference that may well be responsible for Ali\u2019s death. Ali\u2019s death is one more reason to end mandatory detention and the inhuman treatment that is part and parcel of that regime.\u201d<\/p>\n