The Refugee Action Coalition says a hunger strike by asylum seekers at Australia's detention centre in Papua New Guinea ended after intimidation from Australian immigration staff.
One of the first group of asylum seekers at the Manus Island centre in August 2013. Photo: AAP / Department of Immigration and Citizenship
Seven detainees had sewn their lips shut, as more than 250 of them took part in the hunger strike in a protest at Australia's Manus Island camp last Wednesday.
The Coalition's Ian Rintoul says immigration officials warned the asylum seekers that their refugees claims would not be processed if they continued to protest.
"The people who were on hunger strike were visited by their Immigration Officers and warned that if they maintained any kind of protest, there'd be nothing happening with their processing. That was really the consequences. They visited everybody individually and ended up intimidating them."
Ian Rintoul.
The protest was in response to an amended Australian law that allow detainees on Christmas Island to be processed in Australia and given access to apply for Temporary Protection Visas, but not those on Manus or in Nauru.