Protests continue at Manus Island as ring leaders isolated

Asylum seekers are continuing protests at Manus Island detention centre where security staff have reportedly rounded up ring leaders and put them in a high-security isolation unit.

Refugee advocates say Transfield riot officers raided a compound early today seizing leaders of the protest in which hundreds of men on hunger or water strike at the Australian-run asylum-seeker processing centre in Papua New Guinea.

"The riot squad also attempted to force water down the throat of two unconscious asylum seekers in the compound," Refugee Action Coalition spokesman Ian Rintoul says in a statement.

"They also threatened that a special forces unit will come from Port Moresby 'to deal with you' unless the hunger strike was ended by this morning".

Deputy premier Warren Truss could not confirm those reports today but said new Immigration Minister Peter Dutton would be seeking to do so.

"Minister Dutton has made a number of statements about what he believes to be happening at the present time. The flow of information is not always reliable," Mr Truss told reporters in Brisbane.

He said the government wanted to ensure that people in those centres were appropriately cared for.

But he reiterated that people who arrived by boat without a visa would not be resettled in Australia.

"You won't be able to get your way into this country through some kind of illegal people smuggling operation or by, for that matter, put up an argument that somehow or other you are being badly treated now and therefore should be granted access to this country."

The asylum seekers are demanding the department of immigration halt a scheduled January 22 transfer of 50 male detainees to temporary, insecure housing in Lorengau, the Manus capital.

Mr Rintoul said taking leaders hostage or sending in the riot squad would not stop the 700 hunger strikers.

A photo of a letter, purportedly from the protesters, says their lives, and the safety of their families, will be at risk if they are resettled in PNG.