A Papua New Guinean (PNG) government minister has defended police on Manus Island accused of assaulting two Iranian refugees on New Year’s Eve, saying the officers were attacked first when they tried to arrest the men for being drunk.
Papua New Guinean Member of Parliament for Manus Ronny Knight said he saw the incident and police used reasonable force after they were first attacked.
“Two very drunk asylum seekers stopping traffic and harassing women yesterday [Sunday] were approached by police,” Knight wrote on Twitter. “They punched a policeman and were arrested using reasonable force. I saw what happened. The police reacted as they do in any situation where they get assaulted first. This [is the] PNG reality where cops are outnumbered.”
“We cannot compare Australian and PNG police standards. This is PNG and the reality of keeping peace here with a small force is they have to be brutal. I would add that their [the refugees] injuries are what locals also get when assaulting police and acting like this. Only locals don’t get bail,” Knight said.
Knight said the police were sober and professional.
The men and other refugees on the island vehemently dispute Knight’s version of events, and say it was the immigration officers and police who were drunk, and who aggressively told them they were not allowed to be outside the detention center at night.
“The refugees said the first to attack them were two PNG immigration officers who were drunk and came to them and said ‘you don’t have the right to be outside of the prison at this moment,’” a fellow refugee told reporters. “After a few minutes the police joined them and beat them extremely badly in the head, face, back and hands.”
The men suffered serious injuries, including suspected fractures, facial wounds and internal injuries. Photographs show the men with wounds to their faces, backs and limbs.
The two men, whose first names are Mehdi and Mohammad, spent 36 hours in police custody before being bailed on payment of 200 Papua New Guinean kina (US$63) on charges of drunkenness and resisting arrest.
The New Year’s Eve incident is the latest to involve clashes between locals and refugees on the island.
Knight has repeatedly said security inside the immigration detention center had deteriorated so badly that the compounds were dangerous and lawless.
He has posted online pictures of weapons and home-brew alcohol allegedly seized from inside the center.
“It is so blatantly obvious that whoever is running RPC [Nauru Regional Processing Centre] is not doing it right,” he said.
Knight said Manussians were particularly offended by the perception that detention center employees have unofficial immunity from local laws.
Knight has said previously that local resentment at both workers and detainees at the center is growing.
In 2015, three Australian and New Zealand security guards allegedly drugged and gang-raped a local woman inside the detention center, but were flown out of the country before police could charge them. Other detention center employees have allegedly been involved in thefts, assaults and driving offenses. No one has ever been charged.
“Officially, it is now known by locals, we have two laws in this land. One for Australians and one for locals. Fucking disgraceful,” Knight wrote on Twitter. “My caution to all is if they keep acting like this against locals then soon we will see reprisals and bloodshed. That’s not a threat, it’s fact.”
The allegations of PNG police brutality come at a time when the force appears to be in open conflict with the country’s military.
Investigations are under way into a violent clash between police officers and soldiers from the PNG defense force, in which gunshots were fired. Senior police officers, including the head of the national capital district police, were attacked outside the Boroko police station.
Video footage captured by local station EMTV shows soldiers allegedly firing their weapons into the air. That attack followed an earlier incident in which a defense force captain threatened to shoot police officers manning a roadblock.
Jerry Singirok, a former PNG defense force commander, told Australian Broadcasting Corp radio the incidents showed a “total breakdown in discipline” in both the police force and the army.
“The police are a law unto themselves ... they’ve taken a lot of civil situations out of control ... they beat up unarmed people. And same with soldiers, the soldiers are no different from the policemen,” he said.
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