Afghan man assaulted in Cloverhill released on bail

The 21-year-old Afghan man who was attacked and injured in Cloverhill Prison has been granted bail after appearing before Naas District Court on Thursday.

Walli Ullah Safi, who is now officially an asylum seeker, is due in court again on September 7th.

Mr Safi had been remanded in Cloverhill after he was discovered on the side of a motorway in July.

The young man, who had fled Afghanistan to escape violence and persecution, was caught up in rioting at Cloverhill last week when he was held captive and beaten by fellow inmates before prison officers intervened.

Mr Safi was brought by his solicitor to the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner (ORAC) following his appearance in Naas District Court on Thursday.

Direct provision

It’s expected he will be transferred to the Balseskin Reception Centre before being relocated to a direct provision centre.

Asked to comment on the status of Mr Safi’s asylum bid and his current location, ORAC said it would not comment on an individual asylum application due to the “confidentiality requirements in refugee legislation”.

Jennifer DeWan from Nasc - the Irish Immigrant Support Centre - says Mr Safi should have been offered the possibility to claim asylum when he was first discovered by gardaí.

“He clearly didn’t have any English to be able to vocalise a desire to claim asylum,” said Ms DeWan. “Something should have happened at that point to set off alarm bells for agencies working with him to put him in contact with legal advice or ORAC.”

‘Lack of transparency’

Ms DeWan says there is a “lack of transparency” around protocol for dealing with people who arrive in the State seeking asylum.

"If someone can't say 'I want to claim asylum', is there an onus on an immigration official to request that information?" she asked. "When you're coming into a country fleeing persecution you're not going to be a regular migrant, it's not like taking a holiday on Ryanair. "

Mr Safi’s case is “symptomatic” of how the Irish Government treats the idea of claiming asylum and part of our “culture of disbelief around asylum claims”, said Ms DeWan.

“This is a broken system. Right from the start this case was so horrific. He’s stuck in a system that treated him horrifically from the start.”

Not safest option

Ms DeWan says housing migrants in a detention centre like Cloverhill Prison is neither the best nor safest option for those fleeing persecution.

“They can’t be housed in the same places as people who are potentially violent criminals. If they detain migrants, they shouldn’t be in places that are obviously quite unsafe.”

She said setting up a "separate, purpose-built" immigrant detention centre, as was proposed by the Government in its response to the European Committee on the Prevention of Torture's report in 2006, is not the answer.

“We don’t want to go down the UK route of immigration detention centres. Obviously you need some kind of holding facility, but that shouldn’t be a regular prison. We need something distinct and not mixed with criminals.”