Warning: graphic images of injuries below
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Manus Island MP Ronny Knight has declared that two asylum seekers who say they were bashed by police and PNG immigration officials on New Year's Eve "deserved what they got".
The outspoken MP says the pair were treated like any local who caused a public nuisance and resisted arrest. "This is Papua New Guinea. This is not Australia," Mr Knight said.
"These two were drunk out of their brains and stopping traffic and punching cars and harassing women as they were walking home from the night market," Mr Knight, PNG's Vice Minister for Trade, Commerce and Industry, told Fairfax Media.
His claims were emphatically rejected by friends of the two, who insist they were the victims of a drunken and unprovoked assault by local immigration officials, and then police, and will plead not guilty when they face court on Tuesday.
"The refugees said the first to attack them were two PNG immigration officers who were drunk and came to them and said 'you don't have the right to be outside of the prison [detention centre] at this moment'," reported one detainee, the Iranian Kurdish journalist Behrouz Boochani.
"After a few minutes the police joined them and beat them extremely badly in the head, face, back and hands."
The two, identified as Mehdi, 26, and Mohammad, 28, were being treated at the detention centre's medical clinic for facial and hand injuries late on Monday after spending 36 hours in the East Lorengau lock-up before another detainee, Benham Satah, paid bail of 200 kina ($A85) each.
They have each been charged with one count of being drunk and disorderly and one count of resisting arrest.
Local police commander David Yapu insisted police had used "reasonable force" to arrest the men after receiving a complaint about their behaviour from Mr Knight.
"They should have co-operated and come with the police, but instead they resisted," Mr Yapu told Fairfax Media. He did not believe anyone had suffered serious injuries.
Mr Satah said the police commander could have set bail at 1200 kina – 300 kina for each charge for each man – but had agreed to the lower figure because of the asylum seekers' financial situation. "I am grateful for that," he said.
He said both men protested their innocence at the police station and asked to undergo a blood test to demonstrate they were not drunk. "They weren't drunk. They were bashed, they were beaten and they have to suffer from it and there will be no justice."
Mr Boochani visited the men in the lock-up and said they were "scared and distressed". "Mohammad said he is pissing blood and has stomach pains. Some local people gave them food but Mohammad vomited the food and Mehdi thinks his hand is broken."
A spokesperson for Australia's Department of Immigration and Border Protection said any questions about the issue should be directed to PNG authorities, but added: "The individuals are being assessed by medical staff and will receive follow-up treatment as required."
A spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition, Ian Rintoul, said the episode highlighted the human rights abuses inflicted on refugees on Manus, inside and outside the detention centre, and repeated the call for them to be brought to Australia "where they can get the protection they need".
The incident comes less than one week after another refugee, Faysal Ishak Ahmed, died after falling, hitting his head and suffering a seizure at the detention centre after filing formal complaints that his medical conditions were not being treated.
The health provider, International Health and Medical Services, has rejected claims that Mr Ahmed was denied access to medical care, saying he was seen by clinicians and other allied health professionals on numerous occasions in the three months preceding his death "and his presenting medical issues were assessed, investigated and managed".
Melbourne's Refugee Action Collective will hold a vigil for Mr Ahmed on Tuesday evening.
