The private company that runs Australia's immigration detention camps has been fined and police are investigating several employees over the mistreatment of five detainees, reports said yesterday.
An independent investigation found the detainees were manhandled, denied food, water and toilet facilities, and had their pleas for help ignored during a seven-hour transfer by road from one detention center to another last year.
`outrageous'
The company, Global Solutions Limited (GSL), was fined A500,000 (US$378,286) for treatment that Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone described as "outrageous."
"I'm outraged at the treatment of detainees or any human beings in this way," Vanstone said.
But the opposition Labor Party said the government's harsh policies towards illegal immigrants and the fact that it had contracted the running of detention camps to a private company were to blame.
"To have the detention centers managed by a private company whose experience is in managing prisons and who had staffed the detention centers with prison guards has led to this outrageous abuse," he said.
"The treatment of these asylum seekers by this company is a blot on Australia's international reputation for being a nation of civilized human beings."
GSL said in a statement that two managers named in the report had resigned and the company was considering disciplinary action against any other officers involved in the escort.
Australia's detention policy has faced strong criticism, and in June Prime Minister John Howard was forced to soften it to prevent a backbench revolt.
Children and their families as well as long-term detainees who cannot be returned to their country of origin can now be released into the community while their cases are processed, and on Friday the last 48 minors were freed.
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