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.

Take me out of fences and bars

Dear Prime Minister,

“I (a manus refugee) want to share my feeling with lovely people of Australia.

I did not decide to flee my country and family but the war and situation force me to leave my country. I have known a humanitarian country called Australia which gave safety to oppressed and coerced people like me in past.

Not in my case Australian Government give me five and continue years of imprisonment for seeking asylum, unaccountable torture, suffering, wounds and cries, deaths of my friends.

I live a life where system kill my every day every hour every minutes while my same boat people released in Australian community since 2013. Two years before I got positive refugee status am still in detention.

Tomorrow 2018 will start. I am begging for mercies. Let me and people like me on Manus, go.

Take me out of fences and bars......”
— A Manus refugee

Prime Minister, I beg you, let this man go. Let all the refugees detained on Manus and Nauru go to safety and freedom.

asylumRuth HalbertManus Island, torture, freedomComment