02:48
V/O (Chris Masters): This is a picture of persecution. These men are asylum seekers.
The images are drawn not from the country they escaped, but, here -- Australia.
03:00
[I/V] ALGERIAN MAN 1: I told them that they are witnessing the death -- my death and God will punish them one by one, because it is inhuman to act this way.
03:10
V/O: Here in Australia they endured a hunger strike, arbitrary imprisonment, repeated forced injections and expulsion towards the country they fear threatens their lives.
03:23:
[I/V] MANDY McNULTY, IMMIGRATION AGENT: Tape was placed over his mouth and he was able to push the tape off with his tongue, and he was crying and he began to scream in the aeroplane.
03:33
[I/V] ALGERIAN MAN 1: I am not criminal, I am refugee. I am not criminal, I am refugee.
03:38
V/O: Tonight we look at how and why Australia is getting tougher on increasing numbers of asylum seekers.
We look at a range of abuses within Australia.
We also reveal how Australia is itself accused of illegal migration -- in this case dumping failed asylum seekers in South Africa.
04:00
TITLES/ MUSIC: A Well Founded Fear of Persecution
04:16
[I/V] PHILIP RUDDOCK, IMMIGRATION MINISTER: As many as 10,000 people could be packing up now, in the Middle East, with a view to trying to access Australia.
04:30
REPORTER: Nearly 4,000 illegal immigrants landed in Australia last year.
We've got a very, very serious problem
04:42
V/O: Across the world there are more than 20 million displaced people looking for a home.
Working out whether the relatively small numbers who arrive here deserve protection or should fairly be returned to their home countries is an anguished task.
Australia takes a tough stance in managing it.
We are one of few like countries to mandatorily confine people for an undefined time while their claims are processed.
05:16:
[I/V] CHRIS SIDOTI, HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSIONER: This seems to be the whole approach -- keep them out of sight, keep them out of mind, process them as quickly as possible, don't tell them their rights, lock them up and lock them away, and get rid of them as quickly as we can.
05:27
[I/V] JOHN TAYLOR, SENIOR ASSISTANT OMBUDSMAN: We receive sufficient complaints to raise concerns about the circumstances in the new detention centres.
05:38
[I/V] STAFF MEMBER FROM PROCESSING CENTRE: This is the main entry to the Port Hedland Immigration Reception and Processing Centre.
Just going through the main gates into what we call the airlock.
This is where vehicles stop.
05:47
V/O: Our tour begins at Port Hedland in Western Australia.
The Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs has granted unique access to their immigration detention centre.
05:59
[I/V] JENNY BEDLINGTON, HEAD, REFUGEE AND HUMANITARIAN PROGRAM: We were down to 43, I think it was, Richard, a year or so ago, in Port Hedland, and we've now got over 700.
06:15:
V/O: The media and particularly cameras are not normally allowed.
Four Corners gained entry having given an undertaking not to identify people who have security concerns.
There is no question the department, DIMA, and the contractor, ACM, have a difficult job.
Nor is it easy for the people who are stuck here.
06:35
[I/V] STAFF MEMBER FROM PROCESSING CENTRE: This is a standard sort of room -- standard accommodation that we have at the centre.
Two beds in all these rooms.
As I said, common room down that end.
This is pretty much it.
They can have a variety of personal articles in here.
06:52:
[I/V] CHRIS MASTERS: So how long might they spend in a room like this?
STAFF MEMBER: Depends on how quickly the case gets processed and to what extent they pursue appeals. I guess we'd be talking about an average of about three months, at this stage.
07:01
V/O: The first responsibility of DIMA is to verify the identity of people, ensure they fulfil medical checks and sort through their stories.
While we could not hear the stories of the people currently confined, we were able to locate some of the newly released.
07:20
[I/V] DAWOD JAWAD, FORMER DETAINEE: The situation in Afghanistan is very bad.
As you know, the Taliban has killed children and old men, old women --
07:30
[I/V] HABIB JAWID, FORMER DETAINEE: I can say about 10 years I couldn't see the face of peace in my village because always we had problem.
07:43
V/O: The stories are typical.
They come from Perth's new community of young Afghan males who've gathered for a service to commemorate a martyr.
Most escaped Afghanistan, camped out in neighbouring countries, then found their way to Indonesia.
They were smuggled by boat to Australia and confined in Port Hedland before receiving a three-year temporary visa.
They explain why they failed to apply for a visa offshore in this way.
08:19
[I/V] RAMAZAN MORAD, FORMER DETAINEE: There was no embassy from Australia and we cannot go there, and we compelled to leave Afghanistan, and we have to come illegally.
08:30
[I/V] STAFF MEMBER FROM PROCESSING CENTRE: At this stage, we'll just provide a basic school syllabus, till such time as they're graded.
CHRIS MASTERS: Can we interrupt your class?
And what sort of students are they?
TEACHER: Very eager students.
Very keen to learn English.
08:43
V/O: A view that Australia is a soft target for asylum seekers is easily dispelled.
There is little that is soft about a system that locks up all illegal arrivals, their children too, for an undetermined period.
08:57
[I/V] CHRIS SIDOTI: Now, I look at the quite atrocious mandatory sentencing laws in the Northern Territory -- quite atrocious laws, but I have to say that they are positively benign compared to what the Commonwealth is doing under its own laws in relation to these children.
09:10
[I/V] PHILIP RUDDOCK: It's a position that the Government has taken and former governments have taken, in the face of opposition from a number of advocates, including the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.
09:23
V/O: Within the centre, detainees are segregated and isolated.
09:26
[I/V] STAFF MEMBER FROM PROCESSING CENTRE: Essentially, this is our infectious diseases building.
We just keep it if we do have people coming through with hepatitis, or something like that, just keep them separate from the rest of the population.
09:35
V/O: Beyond the need to quarantine potential disease and separate hostile factions, the prisons within a prison minimises the likelihood of people coaching one another to beat the system.
09:48
[I/V] CHRIS SIDOTI: The policy is clearly designed to ensure that those who first come here are kept totally isolated so that they cannot be informed of their rights under Australian law -- and that itself is a human rights problem.
10:01
V/O: The characterless interviewing rooms belie the life and death struggles they contain.
What has to be discovered is whether someone is at risk and needs protection or whether they are evading the normal migration regulations.
10:18
[I/V] CHRIS MASTERS: Why is it important to be vigilant, and, if you like, sceptical?
JENNY BEDLINGTON: It's very important for a number of reasons, and most particularly with this case load because the great majority of them are arriving without any documentation, so we don't know who they are and we don't know for sure where they came from.
10:40
[I/V] STAFF MEMBER (TURNING ON CASSETTE RECORDER): The following is a record of an interview held on 25 February at Port Hedland between an interviewing officer of the Department of Immigration --
10:48
V/O: What one side seeks is a single life-giving paper, a protection visa.
What the other side seeks is the truth.
10:57
STAFF MEMBER: So where are the travel documents you used?
(Translator translates into foreign language)
(Man answers in foreign language)
TRANSLATOR: My passport and my travel documents I have destroyed.
11:13
V/O: DIMA re-enacted a typical interview.
11:16
STAFF MEMBER: Is there any reason why you do not wish to go back to your home country?
(Translator translates into foreign language)
11:22
V/O: The so-called protection interview probes the background of an applicant to establish checkable facts and identify plausible risk.
11:31
[I/V] JENNY BEDLINGTON: What we're dealing with in the protection stream are people who are claiming that they may be killed or very seriously harmed if they go back, and if we get that wrong and say that they -- that isn't going to happen, then it's a very serious outcome.
11:53
V/O: The struggle to authenticate the stories is extensive.
Interviewers email questions to DIMA headquarters in Canberra.
21 staff at DIMA's Country Information Service have a database with comprehensive files on 119 countries.
They can check whether indeed a demonstration did occur in Algeria on the date asserted or that a particular minority group in Iraq does suffer persecution.
12:26
[I/V] PHILIP RUDDOCK: We have situations where people pretend that they are a citizen of a country where it's known that refugees might have come from, but they have, in fact, an entitlement to live in an adjoining country where they are essentially safe.
12:44
V/O: If their fear of persecution checks out, they themselves can check out after an average three months.
But under new laws their status is no longer permanent.
A new three-year temporary visa makes the prospect of staying and having their family join them uncertain.
So when they are able to contact their families abroad on the overworked public telephone lifeline, it's often with a sorry story.
13:16
[I/V] KHADIM FAYAN, FORMER DETAINEE: When we come here we promised them to save our life and also save their life.
But temporary visa made a very big problem for us.
13:32
V/O: Back at Port Hedland, as the 40-degree heat climbs through the day the detainees retreat indoors.
13:39
[I/V] STAFF MEMBER FROM PROCESSING CENTRE: There's a children's playground behind you and the volleyball court over here.
Mainly used in the evening.
It's just -- the temperature sort of precludes it being used during the day a lot of the time.
Most of our activity tends to be during the evenings.
13:50
V/O: While DIMA makes the crucial decisions and maintains responsibility for the centres, the running of them is ceded to a private contractor, Australasian Correctional Management.
14:03
[I/V] STAFF MEMBER: We've got nurses on duty from about eight o'clock in the morning through to about five o'clock in the evening.
They're on call 24 hours a day.
We obviously have doctors on call as well.
14:13
[I/V] CHRIS SIDOTI: It's a mixed bag.
On the whole, ACM is doing better than its predecessor as the detention centre manager.
Before ACM, Australian Protective Services -- a government protection authority -- was running the detention centres and I inspected the detention centres at that stage and I had very, very serious concerns.
Not all of my concerns have been addressed, but I have to say that in spite of initial misgivings on my part about letting the contract to a private sector provider, ACM is doing better than APS were doing.
14:42
[I/V] PHILIP RUDDOCK: They have been a very professional organisation, that they have carried out their work in compliance with the protocols that have been developed to ensure that the detention centres provide a secure detention, but also a humane environment for those who are involved.
15:05
V/O: ACM is a subsidiary of the American multinational Wackenhut.
It holds the contract for all six Australian immigration detention centres.
The company also operates prisons on Australia's east coast and across the world.
The Villawood detention centre is significantly different to Port Hedland.
It houses about 250 people, mostly east coast air arrivals.
It sits on the other side of the continent amidst an established western Sydney community.
15:44
[I/V] CHRIS MASTERS: So, Robin, what is it like living next door to a detention centre?
ROBIN: Noisy. It has been.
When the sirens go off and I can always hear whatever goes over the P.A. system.
CHRIS MASTERS: What do you hear?
ROBIN: If it's muster time, when visitors are coming, phone calls.
16:01
[I/V] KEVIN O'SULLIVAN, FORMER ACM PSYCHOLOGIST: Ironically on the site at Villawood, there's a primary school which is a Moslem school and through the fence, these kids could see the little boys and girls of their own age or slightly older arrive in buses, arrive in cars with their parents, they could hear them play in their playground.
16:20
[I/V] PHILIP RUDDOCK: Well, let me say about Villawood, it's an old facility and one which we acknowledge needs to be rebuilt.
It's under enormous pressure because of the large numbers of people that have to be detained.
16:35
V/O: And this time there was no tour.
We had to make do with what we could discover peering through the fence and into the experiences of a small community of former staff and detainees.
16:49
[I/V] FORMER DETAINEE: I think we were in prison. I can't say another thing.
We were in prison. It's a prison.
16:59
[I/V] ELSDIJA EISSA, ESCAPEE: Two years just in the centre in a small place, like the animal in the zoo, you know, and why I'm here, I'm asking myself all the time.
17: 14
[I/V] NASER ZUWAY, FORMER DETAINEE: He said to me, "You are animal, we will deal with you like animal."
He doesn't have to say that.
If he has a job, he just do his job.
He doesn't have to say to me, "You are an animal," or "We deal with you like animal," or "We deport you."
17:30
V/O: The centre also has an isolation compound.
Families and children stay in the more open Stage 2 area.
Detainees who are seen as higher security risks are confined to Stage 1.
17:47
[I/V] KEVIN O'SULLIVAN: Stage 1 in contrast to Stage 2 has very little open space.
It's a very cramped environMent.
It's surrounded by a fence of razor wire which I found rather disturbing.
18:09
V/O: These 1997 images from the Department's own stock footage bear little resemblance to images that emerged this year from Stage 1.
18:21
NASER ZUWAY: They put me, the first time, one week in Stage 1 -- really, I got shocked when I saw myself in Stage 1.
The first night I didn't sleep -- just I think, "Why they put me here?"
I'm in the jail or the detention centre?
18:34
P.A. ANNOUNCEMENT: Attention all detainees.
It's muster time.
Come to muster with your I.D. please.
18:41
V/O: People inside and out of Villawood complain of how the phone rings out constantly.
There are headcounts day and night that detainees must attend.
18:52
KEVIN O'SULLIVAN: It's most intrusive.
It's also quite humiliating having to present yourself and say, "Yes, sir, I'm here."
19:01
NASER ZUWAY: There is a good officer from the ACM and understand, I think -- he didn't care about this thing -- but there is some of them, they make our lives hard.
19:15
V/O: This woman, pregnant and bleeding, had trouble attending.
19:19
FORMER DETAINEE: I feel that it's like torture.
They used to come every day -- every day, "Come to muster, come to muster."
19:29
V/O: She complains she begged for proper medical attention but was kept in the centre for two weeks before being allowed to a hospital where it was discovered she had miscarried.
19:39
FORMER DETAINEE: When the nurse come, I explain to her that I am pregnant, I am bleeding, I can't eat and I have this back pain.
I can't sleep.
It doesn't matter.
I was crying -- I told her, "Look at myself.
"I am dying. I need some attention."
And she go -- She didn't do anything for me.
20:07
PHILIP RUDDOCK: Well, the only point I would want to make is that we go to very significant lengths to ensure that appropriate medical care and support is available to detainees -- to the point, I think, where some members of the Australian community start to question whether detainees are in fact being treated more generously than the Australian community, particularly deprived members of the Australian community.
Now, look, if people are -- or if a woman is pregnant and is in a detention environment our objective would be to provide appropriate care and support within the facility and if it requires an evacuation to an appropriate hospital or other institution that -- and the medical advice is that that's necessary, it would occur.
20:59
V/O: A consequence of Australia's comprehensive system where determinations can be appealed to the Refugee Review Tribunal, the courts and the Minister means detainees might stay months.
They might stay years.
21:15
DR STUART McDONALD, PRINCESS ALEXANDRA HOSPITAL: If you're a prisoner, you are given a definite sentence with a parole date.
21:22
KEVIN O'SULLIVAN: That central variable was that these people did not know what was going to happen to them.
In this respect it was much harder than, for example, working with somebody in jail.
21:34
DR STUART McDONALD: So not only are you constantly under the threat of precipitous removal from Australia to what you perceive is a life-threatening situation, but you don't know how long it's going to be going on.
If that's not punitive, I don't know what is.
22:00
V/O: The rationale for mandatory detention does seem to unravel with every passing day.
On one side, the long wait is blamed on DIMA for being authoritarian and inflexible.
On the other side, human rights activists and lawyers are accused of prolonging unworthy cases.
22:20
PHILIP RUDDOCK: I mean, what is happening here -- and we need to be very clear -- is that people are arguing that if you delay long enough you should be able to be released into the Australian community.
And therefore if you have sufficient opportunities to be able to take the matters before various tribunals and to the courts, then there must come a time when you'll be released.
Now, I'm not prepared to reward people for that.
22:44
CHRIS SIDOTI: Why then are we punishing the individual asylum seekers?
Why are we punishing 5-year-old children, 8-year-old children, because for whatever reason the department has it in its mind that the lawyers and the activists who are taking up their cause aren't doing the right thing?
22:58
[I/V] CHRIS MASTERS: Why should we punish the children too?
PHILIP RUDDOCK: It's not a punishment.
CHRIS MASTERS: ..because our system is slow?
PHILIP RUDDOCK: Sorry, it's not the system that's slow.
It's not the system that's slow.
It is the opportunities within the system for people who want to continue to test in relation to cases that are at best marginal whether or not they can get a different outcome.
23:21
V/O: The Human Rights Commissioner's 1998 report on our policy of mandatory detention condemned it as being in breach of international law.
23:32
CHRIS SIDOTI: The government says that it has a different view.
I'm sure that it holds the view genuinely, but it holds it in the face of universal opposition from human rights experts within Australia and internationally.
23:51
REPORTER: The Human Rights Commission claims in some cases their treatment is less than humane.
REPORTER: The group's so desperate some sewed their lips together with cotton thread.
REPORTER: Last week, crowded conditions and poor sanitation caused a diarrhoea outbreak affecting 40 people.
24:08
PHILIP RUDDOCK, TALKING TO REPORTER: I'm aware that the facility that we use is a gymnasium.
24:19
REPORTER: 17 illegal immigrants broke out of Villawood detention centre some time before 1:00 this morning.
REPORTER: Australia's newest detention centre has opened on the outskirts of Woomera in South Australia's arid north.
PHILIP RUDDOCK, TALKING TO REPORTER: There's one road.
If people escape and don't try to use the road they're putting themselves in a very, very vulnerable situation.
24:43
V/O: In the last 12 months, Australia has opened two new detention centres in response to increased arrivals.
Four Corners has found many examples, beyond those we can show, of a system under pressure.
DIMA and ACM are struggling with the case load at new centres like Woomera.
News does not flow freely from centres either remote or hidden.
You don't hear much about the attempted suicides and chemical restraint of detainees.
Which brings us to one particular case study -- the story of three Algerian men who staged a hunger strike at Villawood early in October 1999.
The men had escaped Algeria proclaiming in the main to be conscientious objectors.
They entered Australia by air after spending time in South Africa.
When asylum was refused here, they embarked on a hunger strike.
25:53:
ELSDIJA EISSA: After they're getting worse so they're losing weight, they'll reach bad condition.
NASER ZUWAY: They're trying to punish these three people to give example to anyone -- the hunger strike don't do nothing -- just you will lose your health and you will lose your protection visa.
V/O: On October 8 last year, reduced to around 47 kilograms, the men were driven out of Villawood.
According to DIMA they were moved in order to manage their health needs.
An immigration caseworker for one of the men recounts what he told her.
MANDY McNULTY: They said that they didn't want to go -- refused to sign documents allowing their movement and asked for their lawyer to be present, and they were denied an opportunity to call their lawyer.
V/O: Two of the men have spoken to Four Corners.
Their identity is concealed for their safety.
ALGERIAN MAN 1: You see, we were very weak because we did lost too many weight.
So we were afraid that maybe it is deportation.
27:11:
MANDY McNULTY: When they got to the airport, they believed that they were being sent back to Algeria because they had refused to sign the documents. They thought that they were being punished and it was a truly ghastly moment for men who'd been on a hunger strike for a number of weeks and who were in a very weakened state physically and mentally as well.
V/O: But the destination was not Algeria.
At least not at this stage.
Management does have the power to move detainees to prison without referral to judicial authority.
JOHN TAYLOR: The numbers currently held in prison are sufficient to warrant our investigating that issue.
V/O: They were flown north to Brisbane.
They were taken first to a prison, the Arthur Gorrie Remand Centre -- as it happens, another ACM facility.
28:08
ALGERIAN MAN 1: They took us to jail where the treatment was very offensive.
They took all my clothes.
So I started crying, shouting, but nobody answered me.
V/O: Within 24 hours they were to be moved again, to the Princess Alexandra Hospital Security Unit.
The intention was for them to be forcibly treated.
This presented the resident medical officer with a dilemma.
DR STUART McDONALD: Well, the law allows that, Chris.
So it is allowed, but that's inconsistent with what the Australian Medical Association's position statement is about the treatment of hunger strikers.
It's ethically inconsistent with treating the patient with respect and dignity.
V/O: The men were cared for here for two weeks, in which time the doctor, among others, persuaded them to end their strike on an understanding their cases would be reviewed.
28:32
DR STUART McDONALD: Other hunger strikers that I've come across are usually trying to manipulate the system, they're trying to negotiate for something, they're bargaining, they're objecting against some perceived injustice.
But these three men were saying, "I'm sorry for the trouble we're causing you, "but we have decided to die rather than face removal from Australia "and subsequent imprisonment, torture and possible death "in Algeria."
Now that threw me.
V/O: They were moved back to Arthur Gorrie and later returned to Villawood.
There they saw out Christmas and the new millennium.
They knew their cases were being revisited.
They knew of a general rule that asylum seekers are given 48 hours notice of impending removal.
So on January 24 when one of the men was confronted with his worst fear, the presentation of papers authorising his removal from Australia, it was not anticipated.
ALGERIAN MAN 1: I told her that it is illegal and it is animal and inhuman to send people where they can face persecution, or may be killed.
I told them that they are witnessing the death -- my death and God will punish them one by one.
So he ordered the nurse to give me an injection.
I did refuse but she give me an injection on my right hand.
V/O: He says he was put in a security van without any of the certificates of education and other important papers he brought with him.
He says one of the guards made offensive comments.
32:19
ALGERIAN MAN 1: When the car turned I did fall on my left side.
The officer still holding my neck, and in this moment he directed my head to his penis and he showed the nurse how he use it to fuck.
So I was really upset that they are treating me worse than animal.
V/O: Unwilling returnees have learned that making a fuss at the airport can stay a departure.
This is what the man planned as he was locked in a small room where he was to be handed over to a private South African company that had been contracted to act as an escort.
ALGERIAN MAN 1: So when the officers from South Africa came, there was three officers -- two officer and nurse who is a man.
They give me the second injection.
I was sleeping on my right, they give me injection on my left hand.
They took me to the aeroplane where I spoke to the pilot, but they put me on the last chair.
I started shouting and calling for help, but nobody helped.
In the plane, they took me by force, and give me the third injection in my left hand in the vein.
V/O: The Algerian man says he was told he would be escorted to his home country via South Africa.
33:03
ALGERIAN MAN 1: So when the passengers came into the plane I prolonged shouting and calling for help.
At this moment the pilot came to me and ordered the officers to give me more injections.
So they gave me the fourth injection there.
V/O: There was a brief stopover in Perth.
ALGERIAN MAN 1: And one passenger came to discuss the matter with officers.
This passenger told them that it is inhuman to treat people like that.
In Perth these officers where I prolonged shouting ordered the officers to give me injection.
When I saw the needle I was sure that my heart will stop.
So I told them I will not take the injection and I will be quiet.
V/O: Although we don't know what drugs were used to sedate the men, ACM staff say Valium and Phenergan is commonly used.
34:09
DR STUART McDONALD: I can't see any justification for it.
I was appalled and ashamed that that sort of treatment can happen in Australia.
To me, it's just beyond comprehension.
CHRIS SIDOTI: Where it's simply a protest -- somebody even screaming out and trying to draw attention to him or herself by way of protest at the expulsion -- the use of sedatives is not justified, and it is not justified by departmental procedures.
[I/V] CHRIS MASTERS: When people are sedated, particularly for removal, isn't that an example of how chemical restraint is used for the purpose of control?
PHILIP RUDDOCK: No, it's used for ensuring that they don't endanger their own lives.
V/O: Two days later the second of the hunger strikers was again, without notice, prepared for removal.
Again we have only his account of what happened.
ALGERIAN MAN 2: When they took me to the doctor.
They put me in a room.
And they put two guards in with me.
I knew them, they were from ACM.
They had on their right-hand side an electrical device and they had handcuffs.
And I was frightened because their faces looked like monsters.
I thought, I'm going to die.
35:40
MANDY McNULTY: He said that he was told that he was going to be given an injection -- a sedative injection -- and he said, "I'm a Muslim. I want to be in my full mind," and they told him that no, they were going to give it to him anyway.
He put up his hands in a gesture to say "Don't touch me," and five ACM guards jumped on him all at once.
He was lying on his back and the five were on top of him.
One of them had a knee in his face and he actually has a bruise under his eye that's been documented from that knee in the face.
They injected him while he was on the ground.
V/O: By now aware of the earlier removal, legal representatives and Amnesty International were able to react.
In this case there was a United Nations Committee Against Torture request to stop the removal.
Phone calls and faxes bounced between Sydney, Geneva and Canberra.
Amnesty believed the notification was sent in plenty of time.
DR HEINZ SCHURMANN-ZEGGAL, AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL, LONDON: I personally phone called Mr Ruddock privately and said, "Are you aware of this letter?"
And he said he was aware that something was in the pipeline but would not take any action until he has either seen the letter or talked to his advisers.
37:11
PHILIP RUDDOCK: I'd agree with that, because the dates of the documentation suggest that the decision had been made quite a good time earlier, with more than sufficient time for people to have been able to bring it to our attention.
But I am not going to determine that a removal which has been planned and is being implemented will be aborted on the basis of a phone call.
V/O: The plane took off again bound for South Africa on Australia Day 2000.
MANDY McNULTY: So the handcuffs were removed and he was tied up with plastic cord, and that's the best description I can get of what was used.
It was tied around his feet, it was tied around his hands and then around his waist and his hands were secured to his waist.
Tape was placed over his mouth and he was able to push the tape off with his tongue, and he was crying and he began to scream in the aeroplane.
ALGERIAN MAN 2: I am not criminal, I am refugee.
I am not criminal, I am refugee.
MANDY McNULTY: "Please somebody help me.
"Help me. Help me. Call the police."
ALGERIAN MAN 2: But nobody heard me.
38:30
[I/V] CHRIS MASTERS: Does the fact that they have failed excuse being heavy-handed?
PHILIP RUDDOCK: Well, what are you suggesting?
The fact that people will make it difficult for us to remove them should be a basis upon which they're allowed to stay here. Is that what you're suggesting?
CHRIS MASTERS: I'm just wondering whether they should have a right to be treated with dignity in the circumstance.
PHILIP RUDDOCK: Absolutely. Absolutely. People should be treated with dignity and we should allow them to go with as much dignity as possible, and we would invite their cooperation in relation to securing that.
V/O: The Australian Government intended to return the men to Algeria.
The responsibility was handed over to the carrier that had brought them in, South Africa Airways, and the private South African contractor.
The South African Government say they had no idea the men were coming, that they arrived without the proper papers, and they did not pass Immigration.
39:30
DR LINDIWE SISULU, DEPUTY MINISTER HOME AFFAIRS, SOUTH AFRICA: What it means to us is we've also got to be a little more careful about, you know, our transit laws, maybe tighten them up a bit, but I would certainly have hoped that the Australians would have dealt with it differently.
V/O: The men were then held for as long as three days here in an adjoining hotel under guard.
There are serious questions about the lawfulness of the detention.
CHRIS SIDOTI: Anybody who is removing a person from Australia under a contract with the Australian government is acting as an agent of the Australian government, and if a person is unlawfully detained by an agent of the Australian government, no matter where in the world that occurs, it represents a breach of human rights by Australia.
[I/V] PHILIP RUDDOCK: The contractual obligations we have with an organisation, as I understand it, that was to secure their return home, and South Africa was a country in which they were to transit and from which the further travel arrangements would be made.
But look, I'd also have to say, South Africa was a country in which these individuals transited also on their way to Australia.
CHRIS MASTERS: So what are you saying? That they should be South Africa's responsibility?
PHILIP RUDDOCK: No, I'm saying that we have an expectation that our contractors will arrange for them to be returned home.
40:55
DR HEINZ SCHURMANN-ZEGGAL: It's a highly questionable area and we don't think that the Australian Government can simply shrug its shoulders and say, "Well, while these people are outside our hands "we've put them properly into these escorts, "we are no longer responsible."
That is nonsense.
V/O: While Amnesty was now pursuing the case, in desperation the second man cut himself with a knife and later again with a broken glass.
ALGERIAN MAN 2: I was praying to God to get some help from the heavens or from anywhere.
V/O: South Africa's Department of Home Affairs moved the men to another detention centre, Lindela, in Johannesburg.
Four Corners has learned that Government officials expressed anger that Australia was "dumping its rubbish".
DR LINDIWE SISULU: It has become our problem in a big way, yes, because we now have these two Algerian gentlemen and we are required to apply our minds from scratch as though these are, you know, recently arrived asylum seekers from Algeria.
Um, it indeed has become our problem now.
V/O: The contracted escort company P & I Associates publishes on its bulletin board what appears to be an admission they have been circumventing regulations, transiting people without the necessary visas.
P & I deny they were doing anything wrong.
The South African Government is not so sure.
DR LINDIWE SISULU: So we are investigating the company, we're investigating what responsibilities, we as a government have towards them.
And I'm just wondering why the Australians would've found a South African company so useful for this particular purpose.
42:34
[I/V] PHILIP RUDDOCK: If she has a view on it I'd expect her to put it to me.
CHRIS MASTERS: Did we dump them?
PHILIP RUDDOCK: If she has a view on it, I'd expect her to put it to me.
V/O: The men marked time in South Africa, which as you can see, has its hands full managing its own refugee problems.
But the Lindela detention centre, brimming with anything but comfort, was the least of their concerns.
ALGERIAN MAN 1: We are happy that we are still alive, for this moment.
V/O: A nasty conflict that has smouldered in their home country Algeria for a decade does make the prospect of return dangerous, but that is not in itself grounds for protection in Australia.
ALGERIAN MAN 1: You see, now I am considered like traitor in Algeria.
This is the problem.
I did run away, I didn't protect the regime, I didn't work for the regime, and I didn't want to work for the regime.
I did go to Australia, I did seek refugee in Australia.
Even my story with all the details are published on the Internet.
So you think that Algeria will receive me with flowers?
44:03
V/O: The men were given a comprehensive hearing in Australia.
They complain the outcome of the determination was inconsistent with others and believe they were targeted because they agitated for their rights in Villawood.
They fear the publication of their cases on the Internet by Australia's Refugee Review Tribunal exacerbates their danger.
They also believe their lives are being risked in order to deter others.
ALGERIAN MAN 2: I did flee for a reason.
The military services are killing the people and I object to doing that.
It is against my religion.
I just want to live in a safe place.
V/O: Nightfall in Lindela and one group of men is moved out.
These are Mozambiquans who will be trucked back across the border.
The two Algerian men hear them sing their way north.
In Australia they were detained for around 16 months.
At Lindela they were held for five weeks before being released.
They will wait in the community a determination about whether they can stay.
They know that another Algerian already sent back to Algeria from Australia has not been heard from.
Australia never follows up on what happens to people when they are returned.
45:49
PHILIP RUDDOCK: Look, I mean we're dealing with rejected asylum seekers.
They are people who are free to go home.
We have no particular responsibility, nor do I think it would be feasible to be monitoring the situation of the tens of thousands of people who leave Australia each year when required to do so, because they have no lawful basis to be here.
V/O: The goodwill among the people invested with difficult immigration responsibilities is clear.
Australia provides sanctuary to thousands of families.
It's also apparent that Australia's system of mandatory detention, condemned by Australia's Human Rights Commissioner, is looking ill.
How else do we explain the lengthy detention of children, the imprisonment of people convicted of no crime, the use of chemical restraint and the cruelty and bungling that surround these expulsions?
PHILIP RUDDOCK: I think the Australia community expect that people who are not refugees, people who have no lawful entitlement to be here, should be removed and removed quickly.
DR STUART McDONALD: It must be accidental.
It must be a system that has gradually built up.
I can't believe that the country that my kids are going to grow up in has purposely created this system, but human rights are the very basis of civilised society.
They are not negotiable.
There is no excuse, there's no rationalisation, there are no exceptions to the violation of human rights.
END: 47:52
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Reporter: Chris Masters
Producer: Matt Brown