Christmas Island: Australian and Ban

christmas island: If there is no appeal, the Federal Court will hear a class-action suit by detainees who say a blanket ban on phones in all Australian immigration detention centres would be illegal, according to Metro News. The ban would affect hundreds of detainees on the Australian mainland and on the Australian territory of Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean. The government has two weeks to decide whether it will appeal Justice Steven Rares' ruling. The phone ban would not apply to asylum seekers who attempted to reach Australia by boat and have been sent to immigration camps on the Pacific island nations of Nauru and Papua New Guinea. The Department of Immigration and Border Protection had planned to confiscate all phones last month, but human rights lawyers obtained an injunction allowing inmates to keep in contact with the outside world until the legality of the new policy is decided. Most asylum seekers arrive in Australia by plane and are kept in mainland detention centres along with foreign nationals who have breached their visa conditions and criminals who are awaiting deportation after serving prison sentences. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.