Christmas Island labelled a "New Guantanamo Bay"

November 05 2009 by Liam Clifford

Kevin Rudd's popularity slips as Christmas Island is denounced by human rights campaigners.

The island where Australia is currently holding asylum seekers has been criticised and labelled a ‘new Guantanamo bay’.

Christmas Island is located just 220 miles south of Indonesia, however, it is a full 1000 miles from the Australia mainland. Commentators point to the fact that not only is the detention centre on an island as far away as possible from Australia, it is also located deep in the heart of the jungle secured by a 13 foot electrified fence, as a indicator of how important the voting public consider the issue of asylum seekers.

The claim that the conditions are unnecessary comes after reports that the $370million refugee centre is nearly full. Having only opened in December last year, Christmas Island has seen almost daily arrivals from asylum seekers, mostly being intercepted on makeshift boats from countries such as Sri Lanka and Afghanistan.

The protests this week come after more Sri Lankans were intercepted by Australian immigration.

Charlene Thompson, a social worker who works with Asylum seekers on the island and thinks the centre should be closed.

“It’s a jail, a high-security jail, and it feels like the asylum-seekers are being treated as criminals.”

Even though the island is tantamount to an Alcatraz prison the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has seen his popularity plummet in the latest opinion polls. In a country where elections can be lost or won on the issue of immigration, the opposition party in Australia has accused Rudd of not doing enough to halt the popularity of the new immigration channel.

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