Witness for the 617th man on Manus Island

July 08, 2018 in art, activism

Dear Prime Minister,

'Witness' (detail), 2018, Ruth Halbert, Stations of the Cross. https://www.perthunitingchurch.org.au/stations/view/station-6

For 5 years the refugees and asylum seekers on Manus and Nauru have been kept apart from a safe, humane future by Australia. The ocean separates us but we will not turn away.

Dear Prime Minister

To search content of 'Dear Prime Minister' blog:

On July 30 2016 I began to write daily letters to the Malcolm Turnbull, then Prime Minister of Australia, protesting Australia's indefinite detention of asylum seekers on Manus Island and Nauru. There are more than 1500 asylum seekers trapped by Australia in offshore detention since 2013. I wrote more than 600 letters. The transcripts of those letters are in this blog. I did not receive a response from PM Turnbull.

Australians, please add your voice to the growing protest. Join a group, make a donation, lobby your politician. Overseas readers, please lobby your government to boycott Australian arts, sport or business.

Take Action

Handout to print & distribute with links information sources, ways to help, and contacts in Federal Parliament.

Amnesty International: petitions, donations and excellent material for how to take action

Red Cross: Refugee and Asylum Seekers Facts

WACA: Whistleblowers, Activists and Citizens Alliance

Rural Australians for Refugees

ASRC

CARAD: Centre for Asylum seekers, Refugees and detainees

Refugee Council of Australia

Refugee Action Collective Victoria

Refugee Action Collective Queensland

Refugee Action Coalition Sydney

Refugee Rights Action Network WA

Darwin Asylum Seekers Support and Advocacy Network (NT)

Refugee Action Committee (ACT)

Lest We Forget

Manus Island:
Rajeev Rajendran
Hamed Shamshiripour
Faysal Ishak Ahmed
Kamil Hussain
Hamid Khazaei
Reza Barati

Nauru:
Omid Masoumali
Rekhab Khan
Sayed Ibrahim Hussein

To donate phone credit or necessities to Manus and Nauru detainees

Gifts for Manus and Nauru

Manus Timeline

A timeline of the Manus island detention centre since 2012 with links to further information

Art

Chauka, please tell us the time: a documentary filmed by Manus Island detainee Behrouz Boochani.

Cartoonist, Mr Eaten Fish, is detained on Manus Island. His work can be seen here.

The Refugee Art Project: passionate about showcasing the enormous talent, locked away, beyond the razor wire.

The Confined Hearts Project: Penny Ryan's project involves making and showing 1468 small terracotta human hearts, one for each person currently detained on Nauru and Manus Island as part of Australia’s policies on people seeking asylum.

Mohammad Ali Maleki's poetry from Manus Island

Voices from detention

Mina Taherkhani writes from Nauru

The Messenger is based on thousands of voice messages sent by Abdul Aziz Muhamat, a refugee currently detained on the Australian-run detention centre on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea, to Michael Green, a journalist based in Melbourne.

Behind the Wires is an oral history project documenting the stories of the men, women and children who have been detained by the Australian government after seeking asylum in Australia.

My life as a Rohingya, by Imran Mohammad

Walid Zazai is interviewed on radio (listen from [35:00] - [53:00])