By Yuko Narushima
THE United Nations is rushing to inspect Australia's far-flung immigration detention centres before the year is out to form an independent view of how they are run.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees regional representative, Richard Towle, said such a systematic tour was unprecedented, with most of its focus so far on Christmas Island, where the bulk of asylum seekers are held.
''We'll conduct our own visits to these various places to get a sense for them ourselves,'' Mr Towle said.
''The combination of mandatory detention, coupled with overcrowding, the suspension of certain cases and slow processing can create a troubling set of factors.''
Immigration Minister Chris Bowen recently announced a new detention centre at Cape York to deal with an accommodation crisis crippling the government. And self-harming detainees on the roof of Villawood detention centre in Sydney last week showed how volatile conditions had become.
The UN's senior protection officer, Ellen Hanson, was already inspecting the Leonora detention camp in the West Australian goldfields yesterday.
''We have long-standing concerns about mandatory detention,'' Mr Towle said. ''Beyond that, we are concerned about the pressure that extended detention places on individuals and communities and families.''
About 100 protesters gathered on the lawns of Parliament House yesterday with similar demands.
News of another baby born into detention on Saturday stirred emotion and the Greens and independent MP Andrew Wilkie promised to work towards an end to mandatory detention.
''Australia cannot feel any pride in the fact that today there are more than 700 children held in a variety of detention facilities around the country,'' Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said.
The most recent addition was a baby born to a refugee who can neither be settled in Australia nor found a new home because of adverse ASIO checks.
The woman was among four on the Australian customs boat Oceanic Viking who failed ASIO's assessments but were brought to Christmas Island on the promise of fast resettlement.
Among those at the rally was an ANU politics lecturer who arrived in Australia by boat in 1979. Kim Huynh said his family had fled Vietnam when he was two and spent six months in the Palau Bindong camp in Malaysia and endured a boat journey plagued by pirates.
Iranian refugee Mohsen Rezaie said recent protests at Villawood had brought back memories of his own internment there 10 years ago.
''I want Australians to know us before they judge us,'' he said.
Mr Rezaie said he was involved in the 1999 student movement and left family behind to avoid political persecution. ''I went through all the same things these guys are going through,'' he said. ''It just all comes back.''
The opposition later said Labor could not be trusted to end the crisis in immigration.
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