UN seeks access to Woomera detention centre

United Nations Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson has requested permission to inspect the notorious Woomera detention centre for asylum-seekers in Australia.

At a meeting in Geneva, Mrs Robinson asked the Australian Foreign Minister to allow a special UN envoy to inspect the centre, a former missile testing base in the barren Australian Outback.

"There are certainly human rights concerns, very serious human rights concerns, that I would like to have clarified," she said.

More than 200 Afghan asylum seekers detained in Woomera mounted a hunger strike recently to protest at conditions in the camp and delays in processing their asylum applications.

Prime Minister John Howard has defended his government’s immigration policy and said conditions at detention centres like Woomera are deliberately harsh to deter would-be economic migrants.

Howard’s government imprisons all asylum seekers until their applications are processed, a process which often takes as long as three years.