TO ACCOMPANY FEATURE STORY AUSTRALIA-ASYLUM, OF FORMER BANGLADESHI DETAINEE MAQSOOD ALSHAMS IN SYDNEY, 2001-05-22 (photo)

Former Bangladeshi detainee Maqsood Alshams, who spent 475 days inside a Sydney centre for overstaying his visa, walks through a Sydney park at sunset. Despite the fact that more than 90 percent of detainees are granted asylum, some spend yers in detention camps, most in remote outback Australia, cut off from the rest of the world. In protest at their detention, desperate detainess have in the past years sewn their lips together, slashed their bodies with razors and starved themselves on hunger strikes. Australia's Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock defended his stand on the handling of illiegal immigrants seeking asylum despite a growing number of riots at it's remote detention centres and protests from human rights groups, adding that the riots could not be blamed on the time it took for Australia to process applications for asylum. Picture taken May 22, 2001. DG/JD