Brian Rudman: Prison casts shadow over asylum-seeker

COMMENT

If there's one thing you expect from a Labour Government it's the instinct to show a bit of heart.

The decision by the Clark Government to welcome ashore 131 asylum-seekers trapped at sea on the freighter Tampa following Australian refusal to let them ashore is a perfect example of it and it made me proud to be a New Zealander.

The problem is, such acts of charity make the inhumanity the very same Government is now visiting on another asylum-seeker, exiled Algerian parliamentarian Ahmed Zaoui, so hard to fathom or accept.

In saying this, I'm not even entering into the great debate about whether he is a terrorist, I'm talking about the shameful conditions of solitary confinement the Government has held this uncharged and unconvicted man in for the past 10 months in the notorious D Block maximum-security wing at Paremoremo.

Professor Tony Taylor, a psychologist and trauma consultant who interviewed Mr Zaoui for three days, says the Algerian has been mentally damaged by his incarceration and risks "dire consequences in the form of psychotic episodes" unless his environmental restrictions are lifted swiftly.

Helen Clark's response is that "by international standards New Zealand treats refugees and asylum-seekers very well".

Maybe we do, but what about by our standards? We all know that the treatment of asylum-seekers around the world is shocking. We only have to look to the desert concentration camps across the Tasman for evidence of that.

In the case of Mr Zaoui it's even worse. He's been kept in the sort of solitary confinement normally restricted for the punishment or containment of our most evil and recalcitrant wrong-doers.

Like Helen Clark, Mr Zaoui is both a politician and an academic. She, of all people, must appreciate the psychological effect his being separated from his books and human contact is having.

As a result of the publicity surrounding Professor Taylor's report and the campaigning by supporters such as Green MP Keith Locke, the Department of Corrections "will now review Mr Zaoui's management regime".

Don't hold your breath. The statement from Phil McCarthy, general manager, public prison service, says the review "will involve liaising with the New Zealand police and the Immigration Service and will include a review of the frequency of visits he can receive".

"The decision, however, will be Corrections' and his ongoing safety will be a paramount consideration."

This is the Kafkaesque side of it. He's been tossed in prison because the police and security services fear he could be a terrorist. But, now inside, the emphasis is on protecting him from other inmates - or attack from terrorists or Algerian Government agents who might break in to silence him.

In believing this, Mr McCarthy can then stand, hand on heart, and declare: "I would like to reiterate that Mr Zaoui is not in solitary confinement".

What he calls it is "non-voluntary segregation" and "a non-association regime".

He explains that "non-voluntary segregation is not a punishment" and is imposed only when the safety of an inmate or the security of the institution would otherwise be endangered.

To make things look better than they are, Mr McCarthy says Mr Zaoui is not in solitary because "he regularly interacts with staff ... [and] ... regularly receives a range of visitors including MPs, his lawyers, people from Government and non-government agencies and personal visitors".

Further, he has "some interaction with other inmates ... through the grille that separates Mr Zaoui's area from the rest".

Mr Locke paints a rather different picture. Personal visits are allowed only once a week. To ensure Mr Zaoui's isolation, four cells are kept empty between him and the next prisoner.

For much of Mr Zaoui's time in Pare, says Mr Locke, he was allowed only 30 minutes a day outside his cell, and that in the corridor. At that time he was allowed to talk to three other prisoners through their barred doors.

It took a long battle to allow him a radio or television.

Recently he's been allowed more exercise time, Mr McCarthy saying he has 4.5 hours daily outside his cell, including a turn in the exercise yard "twice a week". All, though, on his own.

In Mr McCarthy's eyes, this enforced isolation is not punishment, it's for Mr Zaoui's own good. But that's not how Mr Zaoui sees it and nor does Professor Taylor, who says the prolonged sensory deprivation has done him great harm.

The only "wrong" Mr Zaoui has done to NZ is to enter with a false passport and seek asylum.

The police "threat assessment unit" in its December 11, 2002, report on him said: "El Zaoui is not seen ... as posing a physically [sic] risk to personal [sic] who may be involved in his incarceration."

Their fear was he might be a target of Algerian Government hitmen and that he "will try to gain some support by utilising the media".

None of the above seem justifiable reasons for tossing this man into a sunless dungeon for nearly a year. It's past time Labour rediscovered its heart, and its sense of what is right.