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.

final departure Bridging E visa

Dear Prime Minister,

I asked in yesterday's letter what would Minister Dutton's next unspeakable act be: here it is, already. Detainees from Manus Island and Nauru, who are in limbo in Australia after being sent here for medical treatment, will have the paltry amount of financial support removed, given only three weeks to find accommodation and put on a 6-month visa.

'We want people to go [back] voluntarily' said Dutton.

By starving them and making them homeless? By sending women with babies back to where they were raped? By sending men back to a demolished prison and certain violence?

Here are some of the immediate responses:
Red Cross: 'humanitarian needs must come first'
Asylum Seeker Resource Centre: 'We are not going to let these people go back ... we're going to fight.'
The Hon Bill Shorten, MP: 'Your weakest move yet.'
The Greens: 'this unspeakable cruel act'
Law Council of Australia: 'nothing "un-Australian" about human rights'

What a squalid, depraved little paragraph of Australian history you are carving out for yourself.

 

politics, corruptionRuth HalbertManus Island, Nauru, Australia's responsibilityComment