PAPUA NEW GUINEA – Amnesty International says a barrier installed at Manus Island’s detention centre in Papua New Guinea could be tantamount to torture if it is making it difficult for detainees to access food.

The human rights group’s comments follow reports of a massive brawl breaking out between inmates and guards at the detention centre on Saturday, when a dispute over food turned violent.

Kurdish journalist and detainee Behrouz Boochani told the ABC that the brawl was sparked by a new barrier erected to manage the line of detainees queuing for their daily meals.

He alleges the guards put up the barrier because they believe some detainees were taking more food then they should.

Amnesty’s Pacific Researcher, Kate Schuetze told Radio New Zealand’s Dateline Pacific the detention centre on Manus Island is designed to be deliberately cruel and to take away the dignity of people detained there.

“The latest reports are that a barrier was erected around the food queue making it very difficult for people to access food.

“The rational the guards are giving is that asylum seekers are taking too much food but of course, if they are detaining them there, they have the obligation to provide adequate food.

“So we have this sort of downward spiral in terms of trying to create cruel and harsher conditions in order to pressure those people to return home – so I think both these issues are linked together.

DATELINE PACIFIC: So you would say this is a deliberate act to make it even more unpleasant to be there?

“Exactly, I mean the things we were hearing when we visited in 2013 and 2014 was for example that a simple request for shade, as people were queuing up outside for lunch for hours in direct sunlight, was refused.

“There was no rational basis for doing this other than to increase the pressure, increase the cruelty that those people are experiencing and it’s designed to make the experience as uncomfortable as possible and force them to return home.

DATELINE PACIFIC: And will you be calling for that barrier to be removed?

“Yeah, I mean, what we’re seeing is a range of small measures that increase the cruelty for those living on Manus.

“We’ve called on the Australian government in the past to try and ease the pressure on those people living there and stop ridiculous things such as creating barriers and making it more difficult for people to access food.

“That in itself could amount to a violation of the prohibition against torture, if in fact it is denying people access to meals.

“The risk is if there is undue pressure for these people to return home, they may decide that rather than suffer on an island thousands of miles away from their family that they would prefer to go back to their families and die.

“Some people have expressed that concern to us when we’ve interviewed them, which is quite alarming because that means that the Australian government would be breaching its obligations.

“Sending them back to a place where they might experience torture, death or serious harm because they have been sent to a place that they were fleeing in the first place.

“So, the risk of that situation arising increases as that pressure builds and as more people might be returning home.”

- RNZI