Ruth Halbert
artist, weaver
Paper boat Rud.jpg

Blog: Dear Prime Minister

On July 30 2016 I started writing letters to the Prime Minister of Australia to protest against the imprisonment and torture of the asylum seekers in the offshore detention centres of Manus Island and Nauru. I started with the intention of writing a letter a day for every person in detention until they are all freed. There are more than 1800 asylum seekers in off shore detention. These are those letters and any response from Mr Turnbull.

Letters to Tyranny #26

Dear Prime Minister,

Australia's atrocity continues to be reported around the world. An editorial in The Irish Times warns the Irish against using cruel conditions as deterrents for asylum seekers and condemns Australia's Pacific Solution as a most abhorrent and extreme example of arbitrary and indefinite detention.

"... it is now time for [Australia], a wealthy country, to recognise its legal and moral obligations to those fleeing ... from oppression, time to bring them to and settle them in safety on the mainland. Time to close the hellish camps of Nauru and Manus."

How soon can you do this for Mr XXX XXX from XXX, the twenty sixth of 854 men trapped on Manus Island?

Yours faithfully

Ruth Halbert

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