The United Nations is being urged to investigate Australia's practice of handcuffing asylum seekers on their way to medical appointments.
“I would feel terrible. I would start shaking and sometimes vomit or have seizures and injure myself," Yasir said in a statement."I missed many medical appointments because the guards said they won’t take me unless I am handcuffed. Yasir is the lead plaintiff in a Federal Court case against the practice of handcuffing of asylum seekers before medical appointments and has been given the pseudonym Yasir.PIAC principal solicitor Camilla Pandolfini says the practice of handcuffing is “unacceptable” because many asylum seekers had a history of trauma and torture.
That’s why it’s moved its complaint to a United Nations Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture, ahead of its forthcoming visit to Australia next month. The manual, in its 2018 version, says use of force or restraints may be used to prevent asylum seekers from injuring themselves or others, escaping their detention or destroying property.
In a 2019 report, the Australian Human Rights Commission flagged one case in which handcuffs were applied to a detainee who had a significant wrist wound, for almost nine hours while he was transferred to another detention centre.