North West Point Immigration Detention Centre

Cartographic Name

Identifier

SITE-CIIRPC

Contained in place

Christmas Island

category

Detention Centre

temporalCoverage

2001-Present

sourceOrganization

Department of Home Affairs

text

The District Officer’s house (well-built and roomy, but spoilt by a red tin roof), … could only be reached by a narrow path that had been blasted through the cliff face … in front of my house there was a lawn over which sumptuous bougainvillea trailed their purple pannicles like a Lorelei’s hair, and there were croton bushes that were green, yellow, red and burnt sienna. Round the ridge of the cliff was a line of papaya (or pawpaw) trees with acanthusine leaves on which the flying foxes used to hang upside-down sucking the juice from the pulpy fruit (Victor Purcell qtd. in Neale et al. 35). Neale, Margaret, et al. We Were the Christmas Islanders. Bruce Neale, Chapman, 1988.

"They come to seek your protection, so you detain them until they die and export their bodies to their families. They keep wounds in their hearts – a daily phenomena, they live in pain. We watch the news describe them as others and say their pain is self-chosen. They survived the black sea. Illegitimating is not the solution and depression is impossible to hide (from “Unseen Witness”)." Poetry. Abdile, Hani. I Will Rise. Writing Through Fences, 2016, p.24

"Each day in Somalia
we take the goats and camels
out, find food.
Each day
we herd the goats and camels
back to stick pens
It is like this with the Island Tours
We are the goats and camels
They herd us out,
bring us back,
lock us away
again."
Detention Testimony. A., age 17. Our Beautiful Voices. Writing Through Fences, 2014, p.15.

"In Singapore I was recruited by a labour contractor Ong Boon Tat, who employed workers from the mining Company. I went to this man and he put a mark on my hand to show I belonged to him … They used to call us, with the mark on, ‘Mai Chee Chai’ – like a ‘slave’, like being sold, but we didn’t feel much about that because we went there on our own choice, not forced to go." Community History. Yeung, Lee. We Were the Christmas Islanders. B. Neale, 1988, pp.40-41.

"The toilets also have CCTV cameras. It's really hard to relieve yourself when there's a camera staring down at you ... When each person's number is called, they first have to strip to be body-searched with a device. Finally, their hair is frisked lest there is something hidden inside ... They examine my whole body, even my armpits; they feel right into the hollows." Novel. Boochani, Behrouz. No Friend but the Mountains. Picador, 2018, p.84.

Source

Christmas Island Archives https://christmasislandarchives.com/
National Archives naa.gov.au

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