Oz:Mentally ill woman wrongly locked up in detention centre

Er - I have heard her interviewed over them.

Whoops! She did?
But in your post I read:

"Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone's office has been contacted but so far has not commented on the issue...."

Maybe she's commented since your post?

(Not to worry, Deb.)

Source

Cornelia Rau was abused, witnesses claim
April 2, 2005 - 11:54AM/the AGE


Cornelia Rau was abused by jailers and immigration detention officials knew about her mental condition, new witnesses say.

Ms Rau, a former Qantas flight attendant, was locked up in the Brisbane women's jail and immigration detention in South Australia for 10 months before authorities discovered she was a missing person with a mental condition.

A former prisoner said Ms Rau was manhandled every day to get back into her jail cell.

"They'd push her in and slam the door," the former prisoner told the ABC's Four Corners program, in an interview to be aired on Monday.

"She had no concept of where she was and she couldn't understand why they were being so mean to her.

"She cried all day."

A regular visitor to the Baxter detention centre told the ABC fellow detainees had been aware of her condition.

"The detainees kept saying to me, 'She's crazy'," the visitor said.

A former Baxter detainee told the program: "There was clearly, definitely something wrong - even the guards knew there was something wrong."

Ms Rau is now recovering in an Adelaide psychiatric hospital while an internal inquiry headed by former Australian Federal Police chief Mick Palmer is underway.

Meanwhile, a parliamentary research paper has found Ms Rau might be entitled to compensation for being illegally detained.

The parliamentary library brief looks at legal issues arising from Ms Rau's detention.

The brief said the legality of her initial detention "will depend on whether police and immigration officials carried out the checks and inquiries they might reasonably have been expected to make before detaining her".

It also queried the legality of her ongoing detention, because the full Federal Court has said migration laws do not authorise continued detention based on suspicion only.

The government's mandatory detention policy put immigration officials in a difficult position, the paper said.

Officials had a legal obligation to detain anyone they suspected was an illegal immigrant.

But if their suspicion could not be proved to be "reasonable" or if the detention was unlawful in some other way, the person could seek compensation from the government or individual officers.

© 2005 AAP

Sad.

They picked on someone with tough family this time.

Yes, that is the one and only bright spot in this otherwise sad disaster.

Actually, I suspect that it was that they chose a person who Australians could identify with. Her incarceration made many people who hadn't worried about detention centres think about the issues seriously for the first time. She was rather uncomfortably close to us.

The point about police and immigration authorities is interesting. As far as I can tell the answer to the question is "not much".

Baxter ignored Rau adviceBy Joseph Kerr
April 5, 2005/SMH


Rau 'revealed her true name to prison guard'

Mentally ill Australian resident Cornelia Rau was kept in Baxter immigration detention centre despite a psychologist's recommendation last October that she should be kept with women in light of her behaviour - which included standing nude for several minutes in front of men.

And her periods in solitary confinement at the detention centre continued, despite the Baxter psychiatrist reporting in November she may have been suffering from schizophrenia, ABC's Four Corners program reported last night.

In October last year, the official psychologist at Baxter detention centre wrote to centre management and the Department of Immigration, advising the then unidentified detainee - she had given officials a range of different names and was speaking German and some English - had been acting bizarrely, the program said.

Describing her as "detainee Anna", the psychologist advised she had been walking uninvited into the rooms of other detainees, disobeying direct instructions, breaking rules, and demonstrating "increasingly inappropriate behaviour".

"For example, last night she stood nude in her bedroom window for a few minutes in the presence of males," he wrote, the program reported.

Advising that there were no treatments likely to be effective, the psychologist reportedly wrote: "The ideal solution would be for her to be managed in a female compound at a [centre] such as Villawood."

After going missing in March last year from a psychiatric unit in Manly, Ms Rau was put on a NSW missing persons list in August. She came into detention in April in Queensland, spending months in a prison. In September she was transferred to Baxter, where she stayed until she was identified in February. She was then transferred to Glenside psychiatric hospital in Adelaide.

While she had been in detention, her family had been searching for her.

The program said Dr Andrew Frukacz, Baxter's psychiatrist, wrote in a report that he had been unable to make a clear diagnosis, but "her posturings, bizarre behaviours, withdrawal and guardedness lead me to consider schizophrenia".

A spokesman for the Immigration Minister, Amanda Vanstone, said the investigation into the case by a former Australian Federal Police commissioner, Mick Palmer, did not yet have a date for a final report.

But the chief executive officer of the Mental Health Council of Australia, John Mendoza, said:

"When the Government announced an investigation [by] Mick Palmer without judicial powers, that was bound to fail."

Mr Mendoza said the case showed at least examples of misconduct but possibly also breaches of human rights and domestic law.
~

I didn't see Four Corners last night. Must check & see if there's a repeat of it.
This is very serious.

I've been treated like an animal: detainee
By Penelope Debelle
Adelaide
April 5, 2005/the AGE

A suicidal Iranian detainee has told a court that a psychologist at Baxter detention centre told his friend to jump from a roof during a protest.

The detainee also said the psychologist ignored his own threats that he might self-harm. "She told me that's your choice, you can do that if you want to," the detainee, known as 'S', said.

S showed Federal Court Justice Paul Finn scars on his neck, arms and chest, where he had slashed himself during four years in detention, two of them at Baxter. His neck bore eight-centimetre slash marks on both sides and his upper arms had up to half a dozen vertical incisions six to eight centimetres long.

During evidence in the trial as to whether the Federal Government and the Department of Immigration breached its duty to provide reasonable mental health care to two Iranian detainees, S said he was treated like an animal at Baxter. He said he was held twice in the centre's management unit - for troubled detainees - which he described as a two-square-metre area. He was held for seven days at a time and let out only for meals and occasional cigarettes.

"I thought I was an animal, just like an animal they locked me up in the room and only let me out to eat," he said through an interpreter.

He was sent back into isolation when his brother was refused permission to have music at his wedding.

Asked by his lawyer, Claire O'Connor, if he had considered self-harm recently, S in court made a gesture of cutting his own throat. "I'm tired of everything, I've been treated like an animal for five years, I have no rights in the detention centre," he said.

Lawyer Sashi Maharaj for the Immigration Department said that S had been under constant surveillance in detention by trained professionals including counsellors, a psychologist and a GP.

The trial, which will continue until next week, will hear evidence from psychologists and psychiatrists who visit Baxter.

~

Last Update: Sunday, May 1, 2005. 11:25am (AEST)

The Government has revealed an Australian citizen was mistakenly deported. (ABC)

Acting Immigration Minister Peter McGauran says an Australian woman who was deported by mistake four years ago is missing overseas

The woman's case is one of a number Mr McGauran has referred to the inquiry investigating the detention of Cornelia Rau, who was kept in immigration detention for 10 months even though she is an Australian resident.

Mr McGauran says a search is under way for the woman and says there might be other cases of the same severity.

He says the woman's family notified the Immigration Department about her situation and the case has been referred to the inquiry being headed by former Australian Federal Police commissioner Mick Palmer.

"The individual is still overseas and we're attempting to locate the individual and we're liaising with the family," Mr McGauran said.

"But in the meantime Mr Palmer will inquire into all circumstances surrounding this particularly disturbing case."

Mr McGauran says he cannot identify the woman for privacy reasons.

He says a review of the system in the wake of revelations about Ms Rau's detention detected the other cases.

"People who've been in detention are then released because they have a lawful right to stay in Australia," he said.

"Given all of the questions surrounding the Cornelia Rau matter, we've reviewed our system, located a number of matters that we have now referred to Mr Palmer for his consideration and possible investigation."


Limited

The Federal Opposition has demanded the Government reveal more information about new cases of wrongful detention in Australian immigration detention centres, including one in which an Australian citizen was deported.

The Opposition's immigration spokesman, Laurie Ferguson, says the Government should reveal more information about the new cases.

He says the Palmer inquiry is inadequate for dealing with such serious matters.

"The reality is that its powers are limited, its authority is limited, it is not in the public domain in a real sense," Mr Ferguson said.

"We've said that from day one that the Rau matter is so serious, it's indicative of other problems in the detention process, it should be absolutely judicially dominated and should be open to the Australian public."

Mr Ferguson says a public judicial inquiry with more authority is needed.

Ian Rintaul from the Refugee Action Coalition agrees a more public inquiry with more teeth is required.

"We're shocked and outraged that such a thing could take place but not really surprised," Mr Rintaul said.

He says the revelations show up serious flaws inside the Immigration Department.

"They claim to be sort of impeccable in this regard and have continued to insist on that in spite of the instances over and over again, that refugee advocates have raised - they can't keep maintaining the cover-up," he said.


In other developments:

Cornelia Rau's sister Christine will enter the Baxter detention centre in South Australia today for a visit to the facility where her sister was wrongfully held.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200505/s1357143.htm

Australian writer and refugee advocate Tom Keneally says he thinks there will soon be a change in the Federal Government's mandatory detention policy for illegal immigrants.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200504/s1357053.htm

Palmer inquiry has no teeth: Labor
May 1, 2005 - 2:29PM/the AGE

Labor has renewed calls for a judicial inquiry into immigration detention following revelations an Australian woman was "lost" overseas after being wrongly deported four years ago.

Labor said the government should release details of all cases where people were wrongly held in immigration detention.

Acting Immigration Minister Peter McGauran said the government was searching overseas for an Australian woman it wrongly deported four years ago.

On Saturday he announced an extension of the closed-door inquiry into the wrongful detention of Cornelia Rau - a diagnosed schizophrenic who spent 10 months im immigration detention before she was released in February.

But Labor has repeatedly called for a judicial inquiry into the case, accusing the government of using the current investigation by former Australian Federal Police commissioner Mick Palmer to cover up its own wrong doing.

Mr McGauran refused to release details about the deported woman today, citing privacy concerns, but did say it was a disturbing case and there was no obvious explanation for sending her overseas.

Labor had no problem with Mr Palmer personally, but felt the powers of his inquiry were too limited, opposition immigration spokesman Laurie Ferguson said.

"From day one, (Prime Minister John) Howard has manufactured an inquiry where powers are limited," Mr Ferguson said.

He could not comment on the deported woman's case because he did not know enough about it, he said.

A spokesman for Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone, who is overseas until May 9, said no further information would be released about the deportee at this stage.

He also refused to say how many cases the immigration department had discovered of wrongful detention in the past three years.

That information had been sent to Mr Palmer, who would decide whether further investigation was warranted, the spokesman said.

- AAP

Well, what can possibly you say to this? A woman was wrongly deported 4 years ago(!) & has been missing since! And today is the first we hear about it. AND the government wants to keep the details private PLUS conduct the inquiry in private? What else are they covering up? This is just extraodinary!

"There's a specific - a particularly disturbing - case where an individual was removed from Australia," Mr McGauran told the Seven network. ...

..."The individual is still overseas and we're attempting to locate the individual and we're liaising with the family," he said......

... But the circumstances surrounding this one woman were particularly disturbing and he could see no reason why she was deported, Mr McGauran said.

"(This) one particular individual that is overseas and is an Australian citizen ... should, on the face of it, not ever have been removed from Australia."

The Australian Democrats said the case proved there was an appalling lack of transparency and accountability in the immigration detention process.

"It shows that there's an appalling degree of accountability and checks and balances," Democrats immigration spokesman Andrew Bartlett said.....

<complete article>
http://www.theage.com.au/news/National/Wrongly-deported-Australian-sparks-furys/2005/05/01/1114886244398.html

Jesus wept.

You lot are starting to resemble American bureaucrats all the time.

Yes, sadly we do, Andrew. But then, we've been very up close & personal with the US administration, so it's hardly surprising.