OPCAT Inspection – Australian Visit 2020

UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture
(OPCAT) Inspection 

OPCAT has announced it will visit Australia, possibly in early 2020, to shine a light on abuses in places of detention, including adult prisons, youth prisons, police lock-ups and immigration detention facilities.
Read more here:
There will be opportunities for NGOs and other groups to make submissions to the SPT.

Can you provide information?
In preparation for  OPCAT, the Refugee Advocacy Network is working with CAPSA to compile a report highlighting injustices and inhumane treatment in Immigration detention centres (including Transit Centres) and the circumstances in which people are detained or
re-detained and held for excessive periods (in some cases years) without adequate review.

Please send details including the following:

    • names (these will be not used in the report, but may be useful if the OPCAT Inspectors are visiting the relevant detention centre)
    • place of detention
    • the age and gender of the person
    • how long they have been detained, and the ‘reason’ given for their detention
    • reviews – or lack of review
    • family separation issues
    • any particularly humiliating or cruel treatment you are aware of
    • lack of access to medical services, education and the like, and
    • anything else you feel should be mentioned.

We are keen to mobilise people to make complaints and bring situations to the attention of the Human Rights Commission, the Federal Ombudsman and the Ombudsman in each state.

Further information will be provided in the next ARAN Update
But please do send through the details requested above via the Refugee Advocacy Network website contact email. (Update October 2019).

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