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Indonesian Detainees Riot in Australia
August 30, 2010

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Sydney. A group of Indonesian crewmen on Sunday protested against their detention in Australia, setting mattresses and paper on fire and climbing onto the roof of their compound, an immigration department spokesman said.

The incident began at the Darwin Immigration Detention Center in northern Australia at 4 am when two men climbed a tree and refused to come down.

Others among the 97 Indonesian crewmen in the compound then joined in, setting mattresses alight and chanting and yelling, prompting prison officials to call in police and firefighters, the spokesman said.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported that about a dozen of the men, wearing masks, face-paint and hoods and carrying long poles, had later taken to the roof of their building and were trying to stop anyone else climbing up.

“The protest has now concluded and order is being restored to the affected compound housing [the] Indonesian crewmen,” the immigration spokesman said. “Their reasons are their own, but obviously they were airing grievances about being detained.”

The immigration department said there were 97 Indonesian crew detained in the compound and a “significant proportion” of them were involved in some way in the protest.

No asylum seekers were involved in the incident, which was limited to Indonesian crewmen likely to face human smuggling charges, who would have arrived in Australia with boats carrying the would-be refugees.
 

Agence France-Presse