The table below is based on comments collected from detainees in early June in response to claims made in DIMIA's submission to HREOC - see DIMIA website. (See especially pages 129-130 and 161-162.) There are some gaps, and any corrections and/or additional material would be welcome.
| ACM claim | Yes/No | Other comments from detainees |
|---|---|---|
|
Volleyballs, table tennis, pool table. |
Yes | Balls and other equipment purchased by ACM are always of the worst quality. (Occasionally visitors have replace table tennis bats and balls.) Nets are therefore broken, the pockets of the pool table are holed, and take an average of 2 months to be repaired. The uneven, crushed aggregate surface of the recreation area is hard on equipment, especially balls (and players � who often sustain minor injuries). When the soccer balls wear out, the basketball gets kicked around, and ruined as a result. |
| Cricket | No | No place to play. (Grassed area, which would be suitable, has been closed for months then very recently opened to only 6 detainees (�selected by the guards�) at a time, and for 1 hour only. (On one occasion, the �hour� began at 4.45 pm when dinner is at 5.00!) An exception occurred during the visit of the UN team, when a loudspeaker announcement suddenly invited �everyone who wants to use the area� to do so. |
| Badminton | No | - |
| Treadmill | No | - |
| Board games | Yes | Mostly supplied by visitors. ACM games are the cheapest quality available (eg. chess that can�t be played outside because the light plastic chess men fly away in a slight breeze). |
| Exercise bikes (2) | Yes | But have been broken for the last year. A detainee requested a screw driver to try to fix them but did not succeed. So they are still broken. |
| Tennis | Yes | 2 pairs of cheap plastic racquets are available. |
| Volleyball | Yes | Has been played once in the last 3 months. The net is broken. Not 20 but 12 people potentially in each session (6 per side). |
| Basketball | No | No equipment. Ball ruined (see above). Ring fixed to wall is broken. |
| Sewing machine | Yes | One of the Vietnamese detainees was teaching people how to use it but they got discouraged because, instead of being given whole reels of thread with which to fill the bobbin, they were given only a yard at a time. Instead of using the spool and bobbin, they had to wind the thread around their finger! |
| Billiards | No | There is a cheap, poor quality pool table in a bad state of repair (see above). The detainees think it must have been �found in a junk yard'). |
| Jewellery making | No | On one occasion during the last year, the activities officer brought in a lady �who had wire, and plastic beads and so on� but never since to their knowledge. |
| Egyptian dancing | No | On one occasion a guard rigged up lights for a �disco� type of occasion. �There is no regular class or program of dancing � Egyptian or otherwise�. |
| 5hrs English | Yes | �Teacher is excellent�. | Computing | No | One old computer in the centre. At one time, there were 2 computer-literate detainees who tried to teach people the basics. No instruction since they left. |
| Repainting | Yes | Done by detainees who earn � on a �points system�, where each point is worth $1.00 - around 1 pkt of cigarettes, 2 phone cards and a can of coke per day. |
| Educational programs | Yes | �Conversational skills� is part of �English�. No Mathematics. |
| English classes | Yes | Detainees are full of praise for these classes and their teacher. |
| Activities officer | - |
See under �equipment�. ONE BBQ only � at the end of their last hunger strike, 3 months ago.
Their daily food is of a very low standard. A detainee who has also been in a regular prisoner (he is a �permanent resident� who offended, and who, unlike the Australian who was charged with him, was detained after completing his prison sentence) says the MIDC food is �much worse� than the food he ate in the prison. Part of the negotiated settlement of the hunger strike was that they could form groups to cook their own food 4 nights per week. This has never been implemented. |
| Table tennis | Yes | Not a �new� table as claimed. An old table that was fixed, but see under �equipment�. |
| Music classes for children | No | - |
| Playground equipment in family area | Yes | Some cheap plastic stuff. |
| Gardens | Yes | Pot plants appeared in the visitors� area the day before Julia Gillard visited. In addition, 2 patches (each 1 X 2 � metres) were dug. One tree and some flowers were planted in these patches. |
| Sewing classes | ? | No definite information. |
| Religious instruction | Yes | See comments above |
| Egyptian dancing | - | See above. |
| Red Cross officer | Yes | She used to bring (reasonable quality) toothbrushes, soap, shampoo - but that has been stopped. But the substitutes provided by ACM are of very poor quality. Their toothbrushes last only a short while and visitors have to be relied upon to supplement. |
| Repaint of centre | Yes | By detainees � see comments above. |
| New furniture | ? | 2 new settees were brought into the TV areas the night before Julia Gillard�s visit. |
| TVs | - | There are 3 � �2 of them look as though they came from a rubbish collection� and mostly do not work.[Added 12 August: a visitor comments that detainees hardly ever get a chance to view video cassettes brought in by friends, because only one TV actually works, and that is monopolised by sports enthusiasts ...] |
| Bathrooms | - |
The tiles that had been broken for many months were fixed just before the HREOC visit. The knob on the tap of the shower/bidet (needed by Moslems) was reported as broken 9 months ago and has just been fixed. There are no mirrors to aid shaving � only plastic �pretend� mirrors.[This is quite clear on the photos - even the ones published by DIMIA - see here.] The toilets are smaller than standard size � and very uncomfortable for grown men, particularly if the men are tall.[See photos as above.] |
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