A critical review on Amy Nethery & Rosa Holman (2016) Secrecy and human rights abuse in Australia’s offshore immigration detention centres, The International Journal of Human Rights, 20:7, 1018-1038
Amy Nethery and Rosa Holman argue the circumstances and causes of lacking human rights in Australian offshore detention centres (ODCs). They do this through discussing the inefficiency in governmental secrecy, deterrence, regulation and private company control in their journal article “Secrecy and Human Rights Abuse in Australia’s Offshore Immigration Detention Centres”. Written in 2016, the treatment of asylum seekers is still an ongoing and serious debate because of questionable leaked footage of ODCs. Nethery and Holman use sufficient and substantial …show more content…
This can be seen when Nethery and Holman discussed the incompetency and deficiency in regulations and the unaccountability of service providers that inevitably result in the abuses of human rights. Nethery and Holman used prison studies and psychological studies (concerning students roleplaying in prison) to support their views that closed institutions, without proper regulation and oversight, conclude abuses of power from authority figures. These studies were the only sources used that were not from the 21st century. They also incorporated international standards of prison to give readers different perspectives on prisoners’ treatment in prisons. Nethery and Holman showed this through Germany’s principle of regular oversight to stop “inevitable systemic abuses of power” and the European ‘Committee for the Prevention of Torture and the Inhuman and Degrading Treatment of Prisoners’. Using an ABC news article stating the murder of an asylum seeker by the hand of an employee, the author selectively left out opposing arguments that implied that the death was the result of self-defence in a violent protest (Nethery and Holman, 2016, p. 1028). The authors stressed the importance of outside oversight in ODCs to achieve social integration, improve basic needs, and stop unlawful acts of sexual, emotional, and physical abuse. They concluded that Australia’s ODCs “share many …show more content…
This is done through the authors own words but also in their evidence as well. For example, when Nethery and Holman explained the militarisation of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection by the increase of armed, uniformed personnel they took quotes directly from a news article, such as “battle-ready”; “military-style operations”; and “full arsenal of measures” (Nethery and Holman, 2016, p. 1024). Nethery and Holman used this evidence to reinstate the government’s restriction on transparency, writing that the quotations express hyperboles used by officials to avoid questions. When using this tactic, it was clear that the authors had substantial bias; turning away any evidence that supported the government’s
Amy Nethery and Rosa Holman argue the circumstances and causes of lacking human rights in Australian offshore detention centres (ODCs). They do this through discussing the inefficiency in governmental secrecy, deterrence, regulation and private company control in their journal article “Secrecy and Human Rights Abuse in Australia’s Offshore Immigration Detention Centres”. Written in 2016, the treatment of asylum seekers is still an ongoing and serious debate because of questionable leaked footage of ODCs. Nethery and Holman use sufficient and substantial …show more content…
This can be seen when Nethery and Holman discussed the incompetency and deficiency in regulations and the unaccountability of service providers that inevitably result in the abuses of human rights. Nethery and Holman used prison studies and psychological studies (concerning students roleplaying in prison) to support their views that closed institutions, without proper regulation and oversight, conclude abuses of power from authority figures. These studies were the only sources used that were not from the 21st century. They also incorporated international standards of prison to give readers different perspectives on prisoners’ treatment in prisons. Nethery and Holman showed this through Germany’s principle of regular oversight to stop “inevitable systemic abuses of power” and the European ‘Committee for the Prevention of Torture and the Inhuman and Degrading Treatment of Prisoners’. Using an ABC news article stating the murder of an asylum seeker by the hand of an employee, the author selectively left out opposing arguments that implied that the death was the result of self-defence in a violent protest (Nethery and Holman, 2016, p. 1028). The authors stressed the importance of outside oversight in ODCs to achieve social integration, improve basic needs, and stop unlawful acts of sexual, emotional, and physical abuse. They concluded that Australia’s ODCs “share many …show more content…
This is done through the authors own words but also in their evidence as well. For example, when Nethery and Holman explained the militarisation of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection by the increase of armed, uniformed personnel they took quotes directly from a news article, such as “battle-ready”; “military-style operations”; and “full arsenal of measures” (Nethery and Holman, 2016, p. 1024). Nethery and Holman used this evidence to reinstate the government’s restriction on transparency, writing that the quotations express hyperboles used by officials to avoid questions. When using this tactic, it was clear that the authors had substantial bias; turning away any evidence that supported the government’s