THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Angry and desperate asylum-seekers have torched an immigration detention centre in Sydney, burning nine buildings to the ground after Australian authorities denied some of their requests for refugee status.During a night of rioting, security guards were attacked with fire extinguishers and pelted with roof tiles and timber in one of the most serious eruptions of violence among asylum-seekers in Australia, where the government's policy of indefinite detention is a sensitive political issue.
Riot police had to be called in to quell the protest after the centre's unarmed guards were forced to retreat in the face of the attacks.
About 100 asylum-seekers at the Villawood immigration detention centre, which houses many people whose requests for refuge have been rejected and are pending deportation, climbed onto roofs late at night and began setting fire to buildings.
By daybreak, the fires had been extinguished and the smouldering remains of buildings housing a laundry, kitchen and medical centre could be seen, but the authorities were still struggling to contain the situation within the centre. Police were trying to coax seven asylum seekers from the roof of one building. The group had erected a sign reading "we need help".
The protestors want a meeting with immigration officials, but a spokesman for the department said that would not happen.
Police have warned that the men who took part in the riot could face charges of criminal damage that could further dent their chances of being granted asylum.
But refugee rights groups have said the violence was an act of desperation by people who had been detained for almost two years. » | Bonnie Malkin in Sydney | Thursday, April 21, 2011
