Police at Australian asylum rally

By Phil Mercer
BBC News, Sydney

The Baxter protest has become an annual event

Riot police on horseback have been deployed at a protest by hundreds of people at Australia's biggest detention centre housing asylum seekers.

So far the protest at Baxter Detention Centre near Adelaide has been noisy and largely peaceful.

Campaigners want an end to the mandatory detention of asylum seekers, which the authorities justify on health and security grounds.

They also want the closure of the country's network of immigration camps.

The government has no intention of altering a policy that it has described as a very effective way of stemming the flow of boat people arriving from Indonesia.

Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone says this week's decision to free some long-term detainees who have had their asylum applications rejected shows how compassionate the government is.

The mandatory detention of asylum seekers began in Australia under a left-of-centre Labor government more than a decade ago.

It was sparked by the arrival of several hundred boat people from Vietnam, Cambodia and China.

A recent opinion poll suggested that the majority of Australians support the current government's asylum policy.