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.

For the 174th man on Manus Island

Dear Prime Minister,

The negligent, inadequate health care on Manus Island and Nauru has been brought to light again since the death of Faisal Ishak Ahmed. In the coronial inquest in the death of Hamid Kehazaei, also a refugee who had been imprisoned on Manus Island, evidence has been presented that:

medical facilities were inadequate, doctors' clinical instructions were ignored and critical medical equipment was not working. Requests to urgently transfer Kehazaei from the island were ignored, then refused, before he was finally flown in an air ambulance, first to Port Moresby and then to Brisbane.

Behrouz Boochani, also a prisoner on Manus Island, writes "Australia is killing us one by one."

Stop the deaths now, Mr Turnbull, close the camps, and bring them here.

lies, politicsRuth HalbertManus Island, death, IHMS, tortureComment