Australian Government Minister , Phillip Ruddock
allows frequent and routine public strip searching
of refugees.
Email the Australian Prime Minister to express your anger about the indignity of strip searching
Yank the Minister's tie to send your email.
Is there no end to the sadism of the guards in Australia's Detention Centres?
What Every man woman and child can be subjected to in the Detention Camps under the Migration Act.'
Read this and then ask yourself how you would feel if in order to visit a friend in another compound you had to submit to the following.
How could anyone bear to think of watching this being done to children.
under the Migration act any child over 10 years can be strip-searched.
As we know ACM guards use the right to inspect provisions liberally: opening doors, shining torches in faces and demanding identity cards all through the night at hourly even half-hourly intervals when they feel like
it so it is not hard to imagine that this strip searching will be conducted with a maximum of menace and enjoyment from the guards.
Strip searching is being done routinely in Woomera and Baxter . To make a phone call in Baxter, people have to go outside their compound. this requires a strip search to
re-enter.
STRIP SEARCHES
Persons are required to remove all clothing one article at a time and hand
it to one of the two officers doing the search.
The officers, wearing rubber gloves, physically search all clothing and throw or drop it to the floor after searching. The person/child stands in various stages of undress holding the next item of clothing until the officer has finished with each item of clothing.
The process of removing one's clothes and having them searched leaves a person/child standing naked before staff and possibly other persons for some minutes.
Once naked the person /child is then ordered to:
Bend head forward and run fingers though hair;
Open mouth (the mouth cavity inspection);
Remove any dentures if used;
Pull down bottom lip;
Pull up top lip;
Lift and wiggle tongue;
Turn head to the right and pull back ear;
Turn head to the left and pull back ear;
Turn head to the right (to allow the officers to look in ear canal);
Turn head to the left (to allow the officers to look in ear canal);
Hold both arms out and show the officers the front and back of hands, between fingers and under arms;
Lift scrotum (it is possible to be required to peel back foreskin if so ordered);
Turn around and bend over and pull the cheeks of buttocks apart displaying the space between the cheeks (the buttocks cavity inspection);
Lift right foot and wiggle toes;
Lift left foot and wiggle toes; and
Get dressed. (It is part of the procedure that the person/ child is told to "get dressed" - it is the last little insult to demonstrate just how powerless you are - that they even instruct you to put on clothing).
