Canberra: Australia’s immigration minister has accused refugees on Manus Island of lying about being threatened by locals, despite videos of at least one incident.
Asylum seekers and refugees have claimed they have been subjected to multiple threats from local Papua New Guineans since being removed from the Australian-run detention centre and placed in accommodation in Lorengau.
Separate videos provided by refugees to Guardian Australia show two apparently intoxicated men at the transit centre, one of whom made death threats.
In one clip, which refugee and journalist Behrouz Boochani said was shot on Saturday, a man staggers around the outside of a building at West Haus wielding a long metal implement. He gestures towards a person or people out of shot, shouting, “You are a dead man”, and, “I will kill you”, in Tok Pisin.
He continues to shout and wave the weapon around as another man drags him away.
The video, shot through the metal fence, shows the man throw a rock at the centre before leaving.
But in Canberra on Monday Peter Dutton said the refugees’ claims of being threatened were “complete nonsense”.
“The propaganda must stop,” he said. “I didn’t put them on Manus Island but I have the job to get them off.
“Some people are lying. There is no question of that. Some advocates are behind those lies,” he said.
“I want people off Manus Island, I want them off as quickly as possible, but the job is made harder by the propaganda being spread by people online, including advocates here and some advocates on the island as well. Any other questions on other issues?”
A second video, purported to be shot last week, shows a man who appears to be intoxicated enter a building with several refugees inside. He claims to be the landowner and security let him pass. The man demands food.
“I’m the owner of this place,” he says.
A security guard then turns to the camera and tells the operator to “Switch it off” and “Delete that now”.
Boochani said the man seemed drunk but did not threaten violence, and eventually police removed him.
The final few hundred refugees and asylum seekers were forcibly removed to Lorengau after an almost monthlong standoff in the detention centre. The men refused to leave because they said they feared for their safety in Lorengau.
In the days afterwards some were moved into the two unfinished accommodation centres, someone broke in to shut down the generator, and a group of locals staged a blockade protest at the entrance.
Boochani told Guardian Australia the two incidents followed others.
“Last week, on December 7, an angry local man came to Hillside, yelling at security and refugees: ‘You must leave’,” he said.
“In another incident on December 6 at 5pm a man stopped a Bangladeshi refugee on the road to Hillside, held a knife to his body and searched him. The refugee said police appeared and helped him, and the man ran away.”
Boochani said the new accommodation camps were close to a village and they had warned authorities that would create more conflict.
“No one should blame the local people for this situation,” he said.
“The government doesn’t respect them and dropped 600 foreign men in their small community. It’s a problem created by the Australian and PNG [Papua New Guinea] governments and they benefit from making the place unsafe for refugees, to put pressure on them to return to their home countries. It’s not safe there, and it’s not safe here.”
Last week refugees were told if they wanted to apply for US resettlement — as part of a deal struck between the Australian government and the Obama administration over a year ago — they would have to fly to Port Moresby. About 60 were given appointment slips and had travel arranged to meet officials on Wednesday.
