thesociety4advancement-blog

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It is important we take up the cause of broken people in the nations and stand against initiarives stripping them of all support.

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Eaten Fish, the cartoonist imprisoned on Manus Island for 4 years

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Cartoonists around the world rally in support of Eaten Fish, the cartoonist imprisoned on Manus Island for 4 years and now threatened with deportation #AddaFish #EatenFish

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WHAT DO DETENTION CENTRE VISITORS SEE?

I am a Detention Centre visitor and community support person (friend) of many of the asylum seekers and refugees arriving after Kevin Rudd’s heinous July 2013 decree and victims of the LNP government’s orchestrated persecution.

I am extremely concerned for the plight of refugees from Manus and Nauru. Especially those who are currently in Australia for medical purposes - the majority of whom have been deemed too ill to be returned to detention or offshore for over two and a half years.

I care for many of these refugees. I have witnessed seizures, extreme panic attacks, severe depression, suicide attempts and the debilitating effects of chronic pain caused by anxiety. I have looked into the haunted eyes of their children and talked with teenagers who speak and act like old men and women - their childhood sadly has been taken from them. These people must be protected at all costs.

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Canberra, Australia’s Capital, also championing the call for refugees to be welcomed, for inhumane treatment to end and for offshore camps to close.

Canberrans insist on transparent and honest processing system … “a fair go for all.”

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Melbourne, city of Champions, where thousands upon thousands regularly call for refugees in Manus & Nauru to be brought to the mainland for settlement.

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The cartoonist powerfully depicts the type of logic prevailing in Australia since politicians began dehumanising boat people. Wherever the creation of sub classes of people groups is tolerated great suffering will abound.

When Immigration Minister, Peter Dutton, visits offshore processing centres he ensures personal encounters with refugees are avoided. He locks himself away in cars, offices and restaurants.

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Australian indigenous elder

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AUSTRALIAN NURSES & MIDWIVES SAY #BringThemHere and #LetThemStay

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TEACHERS SAY CLOSE MANUS AND NAURU, WELCOME REFUGEES Teachers call on Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Minister for Immigration and Border Protection Peter Dutton to immediately: – Close Manus Island and Nauru detention centres, and – Bring all refugees and asylum seekers on Manus and Nauru to Australia for processing and resettlement.

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SECRECY: AUSTRALIA’S “OUT OF SIGHT, OUT OF MIND”, OFFSHORE SCHEME TO REFOULE REFUGEES BACK INTO THE DANGER THEY FLED FROM

Located in the Bismarck Sea and more than 800km (500 miles) north of the PNG capital Port Moresby - or a 3,500 km, 10-hour flight from Sydney - Manus is one of PNG’s most remote islands.

Government secrecy surrounding the operation of these isolated centres means many Australians know little about what life is like for those detained inside.

When journalist Eoin Blackwell needs to find out what’s going on inside Australia’s immigration detention centre on Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) Manus Island, he calls his local contacts.

Mr Blackwell doesn’t bother making official inquiries because, in his experience, information or access requests made to the Australian and PNG governments are ignored or forgotten.

He paints a grim picture of what life is like for more than 1,000 male asylum seekers in a centre now infamous for detainee deaths, describing hot, harsh conditions, malaria, overcrowding, poor hygiene, riots, hunger strikes, mental illness and water shortages.

“Foxtrot (one of four Manus compounds) was a pit of human misery,” Mr Blackwell recalls.

“The refugees live in shipping containers, there’s water everywhere, lights not working, the heat is oppressive, no windows. There was a (detainee) with a bandage over his eye… asking for help in this stinking, hot compound.”

“In some compounds, guards wear cameras on their uniforms. There are routine patrols in the yard and the rooms. Staff are checked with security wands on the way in and out

The Australian government doesn’t want the public to know what is really going on inside the centre.

The secrecy surrounding Australia’s asylum camps BBC World News Louise Evans 11 March 2015

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DOCTORS ACROSS AUSTRALIA DEFIED THREATS OF JAIL FOR EXPOSING MEDICAL NEGLECT Doctors for Refugees demonstrated that clean consciences override the potential loss of freedom and careers, when it comes to exposing abuses in detention. They defied the threat of jail, supported by lawyers and barristers promising a pro bono defence.

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Respect ❤️

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Imagine leaving this devastating situation, struggling to make it to a western nation, like Australia and then being locked up in horrendous conditions with years of pressure designed to make you return to this again.

IRAQ. Nineveh governorate. Mosul. March 15, 2017. Civilians line up for aid distribution in the Mamun neighbourhood. 

Even with fighting all around them, many Mosul residents have heeded the government’s requests to stay home as long they can hold out. But after months of being trapped, most are in dire need of food and water. With the fighting still heavy, international groups have been unable to reach some of the worst off.

Government aid distribution is overseen by local militia fighters. They take place irregularly and very often descend into chaos as desperate people fight for bags of rice and sugar, as prices have skyrocketed over the past four months since the offensive began.

Photograph: Ivor Prickett for The New York Times

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DOES CHANGING THE WAY WE REFER TO REFUGEES MATTER? ASRC CEO Kon Karapanagiotidis: “deliberately trying to dehumanise asylum seekers by making them less than human … now insisting on calling them detainees’, not people, that suggests criminality… ‘transferees’ suggests they have no rights; they’re a package, a parcel, in transit” Opposition Leader, Bill Shorten referred to it as the “the demonisation of refugees,” The then Opposition immigration spokesman Richard Marles objected to the change saying, “Australia should treat every human being with respect and ‘‘terms like illegal are not helpful” (Hall 2016).

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HOW BOAT PEOPLE BEGAN TO BE CALLED ILLEGAL? Seeking Asylum is legal, so why are boat people called “illegals?” Changing the way we referred to them was a political stunt.

It is true to say that people arriving by boat between July and October 20, 2013, were generally referred to as ‘clients.’ Their designation did not change until the end of October 2013, three months after the election, when Minister for Immigration, Scott Morrison, “instructed departmental and Detention Centre staff to publicly refer to asylum seekers as ‘‘illegal maritime arrivals” and as ‘‘detainees.“ (Hall 2016).

The Minister’s directive also declared those sent to Manus and Nauru were to be renamed “transferees” (Hall 2016).

Sydney Morning Herald The Minister wants boat people called illegals Bianca Hall 20 October 2013

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DID ASYLUM SEEKERS KNOW THE SITUATION THAT AWAITED THEM WHEN THEY LEFT THEIR HOMELANDS? Truthfully, when these people fled danger in its various forms in search of safety, they did so legally.

When the groups of boat people sent to offshore detention in Manus Island and Nauru left their homelands, and even their place of embarkation, they were called, in our vocabulary, “irregular maritime arrivals“ in recognition of the fact it is LEGAL under Australian domestic law and international law to claim asylum” (Hall 2013).

If they had been in a position to do any research, they would have and, still could establish, by looking at the Parliament of Australia’s library website, that they “had a right to seek asylum and to not be penalised for their mode of entry” (Parliament of Australia 2016). The new Coalition government declared them “illegal” as a political stunt, three months after entering office. These people are no different to the asylum seekers who arrive by plane or humanitarian visa. They found themselves facing death, torture, persecution or starvation and fled hoping to find safety. Sadly those arriving in Australian waters after July 19, 2013 became political pawns the moment they stepped off boats. They walked into a macabre point scoring game where ‘operational secrecy’ has tried its best to smother their cries. For four years they have been subjected to acts of extreme cruelty and deliberate brutality NOTE: Asylum seekers are people asking to be rescued from danger. Refugees are people who have had their individual cases processed and have proven that they have a well founded need for protection.