Iranian refugees beaten by police outside Australian refugee camps in Pacific

Two Iranians, who have applied for refugee status in Australia, have been assaulted and severely beaten by police in Papua New Guinea (PNG), where Canberra runs refugee detention camps, an activist group says.

Identified only as Mehdi and Mohammad, the Iranians were on their way to celebrations for New Year’s Eve outside the Australian-run detention camp on the PNG’s Manus Island when they were approached by police, told they could not be outside the camp, and heavily beaten, according to Refugee Action Coalition Sydney.

The Iranians reportedly suffered fractures to their wrists, jaws, and noses, and were denied painkillers, food, and medical treatment while kept in prison after the assault. Their wounds were reportedly festering, and one had found blood in his urine.

Ian Rintoul, a spokesman for Refugee Action Coalition Sydney, which campaigns for the rights of individuals applying for refugee status in Australia, however, said on Monday that, “The men were allowed to be outside the detention center and were not doing anything wrong,” Australian Associated Press reported.

The group considered the Australian government to be a “party to the brutality.”

“It’s time the government stopped playing politics with the lives of innocent people, and brought all the asylum seekers and refugees to Australia,” Rintoul said.

Australia stops boats transporting asylum seekers from reaching its shores and prevents their resettlement in the country. The Australian government has leased the camp on the PNG’s Manus Island as well as another on the island country of Nauru to send the refugees irregularly arriving at its shores by sea.

In August, Australia agreed to close down the Manus camp after the PNG’s Supreme Court ruled that the detention of asylum seekers was in violation of the right to personal liberty enshrined in the country’s constitution. Canberra has not implemented that ruling, however.

Refugees are, meanwhile, widely reported to be kept in squalid conditions and beaten up by police. In 2014, an Iranian asylum seeker named Reza Barati (seen in the portrait below) was killed from severe head trauma during rioting at the detention center on Manus Island.

Also last August, the Iranian Embassy in Canberra issued a statement expressing concern about the treatment of Iranian refugees at the detention centers run by the Australian government. It added that the diplomatic mission would always assist the return of the refugees to the Islamic Republic as long as it took place on a voluntary basis.

According to the statement, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif had met earlier with the Australian ambassador to Tehran, communicating Iran’s “dissatisfaction” with the refugees’ situation at the camps. The top Iranian diplomat had also urged the closure of the camps and respect for “the Islamic Republic’s principal policy of preservation of the dignity and rights of Iranian nationals.”

Addressing the latest incident, Senator for South Australia Sarah Hanson-Young said in a tweet, “Refugees bashed on Manus Is. Again. This prison camp’s been found to be illegal and still the Govt. keeps ppl dumped there. Turnbull’s shame,” referring to Premier Malcolm Turnbull of Australia.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton, however, said activists were trying to manipulate the incident to attack the government’s immigration policies. “I would wait to see the police side of the story before making any comment,” he said.

Last year, the UK-based rights body Amnesty International said the Australian government had set up “a system of deliberate abuse of and cruelty” toward the refugees kept in the detention camps.

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