A TEAR-GAS gun was pointed at the head of a Vietnamese asylum-seeker, police stamped on bare feet, legs and arms and Vietnamese hurled buckets of excrement, a monitoring team at this week's High Island detention centre operation reported yesterday.
In a carefully worded report, the independent monitoring team identified isolated instances of violence, abuse and neglect on the part of some police, Correctional Services Department (CSD) officers and Vietnamese inmates.
While finding that 'extreme restraint' was exercised by all parties, the report also identified several areas of concern for the Government to consider.
It focused on the operation on Monday and Tuesday to extract people from the north camp of High Island for forced repatriation flights, which left for Hanoi on Thursday and yesterday. About 700 police and CSD officers were involved in the two-day task.
Preferring not to make recommendations, the report concluded that 'without any doubt there were serious incidents perpetrated by individuals on all sides'.
'One monitor observes a CSD officer level a tear-gas gun one to two feet [30 to 60 centimetres] away from the face of a person whom officers are trying to subdue on the ground. Within seconds, a fellow officer shouts at the officer concerned, pushing away the gun at the same time,' it reported.
