Nineteen cases of violence and sexual assault – including eight against children – were referred to Nauru’s police during the 18 months covered by the Nauru files, an official review has found, but there have been no prosecutions or convictions.  The Department of Immigration and Border Protection released analysis of the Nauru files at the weekend, which confirmed the referrals to police. The Nauruan police have not charged any person with an offence against an asylum seeker or refugee in the three years of offshore processing on the island.  This is despite a series of alleged assaults on asylum seekers and refugees, including reports of gang rapes that were reported to police, physical and sexual assaults on children, and repeated attacks on unaccompanied minors outside the fences of the detention centre. Many of the assault claims are supported by video and photographic evidence.  The department says 11 allegations of sexual assault or violence against adults were referred to Nauru’s police. There were also eight investigations that related to offences against children – two alleged sexual assaults, four assaults and two unspecified investigations.  It is unclear if there are some investigations still continuing. Calls to the Nauruan police by the Guardian have not been returned.  The department has spent months since the release of the Nauru files analysing the document: in effect a review of itself.  The government already had the Nauru files in its possession. The files comprised 2,123 incident reports logged by detention centre staff from Save the Children, Transfield and Wilson Security between May 2013 and October 2015 – and were filed to the department.  It has released the figures in an apparent attempt to dampen the criticism of its offshore processing regime which followed release of the Nauru files.  A spokesman for the department told the Australian newspaper “any allegation of sexual assault or other serious violence is of concern”.  But it said its analysis showed that “it is clear the contention that the Nauru files represent thousands of cases of abuse of transferees and refugees cannot be supported by a review of the documents”.  Guardian Australia did not report that every single file related to a sexual assault or child abuse allegation. The reports range from extremely serious allegations to mundane daily reports that show the totality of life on Nauru. Guardian Australia clearly documented the full spectrum of incidents and conducted a detailed data analysis of each of the incident categories.  The department said 23 of the 2,123 reports detailed “critical” incidents, where life or serious injury was at risk, or serious violence, sexual assault or criminal activity had occurred. A further 281 were classified as major – where serious injury was at risk. The remainder were minor or “unclassified”.  But one of the consistent concerns raised in the Nauru files – and corroborated by whistleblowers before and subsequently – has been the practice of “downgrading” incident reports, where incidents in detention that should be classified as “critical” or “major” were downgraded to “minor” or “information”. Welfare staff were regularly pressured by Wilson Security guards to downgrade reports because of concern over missing reporting deadlines.  At other times, incidents were downgraded by the word “critical” being crudely crossed out in favour of a lower classification, or left uncategorised.  The issue of downgrading has been the subject of several submissions to Senate inquiries and was admitted by Wilsons in a widely circulated internal email reported by the Guardian.  “In recent months Wilsons have been downgrading SCA Incident Reports when they are submitted to them at Command. They are usually downgraded without any clear justification,” a staff email circulated on the island said.  Several of the downgraded reports related to the violent or sexual assault of children.  The department has said previously that “a mechanism for reclassification is completely appropriate”. “Reclassification of incident reports shows that we take each claim very seriously and act upon these with all due diligence.”  Ian Rintoul, from the Refugee Action Coalition, told the Guardian that “even the government’s own figures are a shocking indictment”.  “Even if you take this government response at face value, you still have more than two serious incidents every week since 2013, and to suggest that the scale of the abuse and self-harm is not common is just patently ridiculous.”  Rintoul said the government was attempting to “paper over” the climate of abuse and desperation on Nauru.  “These incidents are clearly a common occurrence. This level of abuse and mental distress is normalised on Nauru and the government’s figures and spin don’t do anything to diminish that. It’s a disgrace they are trying to play this down.”  The Nauru files incident reports related only to incidents that occurred inside detention, Rintoul said. “It doesn’t reflect anything about what’s going on in the community, where the situation is magnified again.”  The community on Nauru is made up of 755 refugees, of which 396 asylum seekers and refugees live in the processing centre.  The Department of Immigration and Border Protection declined to release the internal review it has conducted into the Nauru files incident reports.  When the Nauru files were first published, the department said: “The Australian government continues to support the Nauruan government to provide for the health, welfare and safety of all transferees and refugees in Nauru.  “The documents published today are evidence of the rigorous reporting procedures that are in place in the regional processing centre – procedures under which any alleged incident must be recorded, reported and where necessary investigated.”  The immigration minister, Peter Dutton, dismissed some of the incident reports as “hype”.  The department of immigration has delayed for several months the public release of a key child protection review of Nauru, which was delivered to the department secretary, Mike Pezzullo, in July.
Immigration department’s analysis of thousands of leaked incident reports reveals more than a dozen referrals to Nauru police. There have been no convictions