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.

End offshore detention #321

Dear Prime Minister,

$70 million payout and $20 million costs is the biggest human rights settlement in Australian legal history. As Michael Gordon writes in The Age:

“Dutton suggests the decision to settle was pragmatic, avoiding an action that would have run for six months, cost tens of millions in legal fees, and had “an unknown outcome”. This is hardly a statement of confidence in the Commonwealth’s ability to refute the claims of human rights violations on a huge scale.”
— Michael Gordon: http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/despite-what-peter-dutton-says-the-manus-island-payout-is-momentous-20170614-gwr0se.html

Close the camps and bring them here.

law, politicsRuth HalbertManus Island, hush money, refugees, illegal detentionComment