By Jill Fraser
MELBOURNE
An open letter to Australia's leaders, claiming to have been written on behalf of 600 asylum seekers in an Australian detention center, carries a desperate plea for suicide assistance.
The note, which refugee advocate Julian Burnside QC released on his website Nov. 30, paints a picture of men who have reached a point of despair, worthlessness and hopelessness.
The words, claimed to have been penned by the detainees at Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island, express the sentiment that they have been used as pawns in Australia's hardline refugee policy to "stop the boats", and suggest that having fulfilled their role they have now been assigned to the "rubbish" heap.
The letter, addressed to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Australia's Minister for the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) Peter Dutton, outlines three options for how the mass suicide could be carried out.
"This is not a joke or a satire," it states.
Speaking to Anadolu Agency on Friday, Burnside said he received the letter (in full below) in an email from "a person who is in fairly regular contact with some of them [asylum seekers on Manus Island]."
Anadolu Agency has requested comment from the offices of the prime minister and the minister for immigration and border protection, and also sought confirmation as to whether the letter is or is not genuine to no avail.
"It’s a symptom of people in extreme distress," Burnside said. "I don’t think it matters if you take the words at their face value or not. It’s about what drives a person to pen sentiments like that."
Most of the 600 men have been in detention since July 2013.
Australia’s indefinite detention of asylum seekers and refugees on Manus Island, Nauru and Christmas Island has been criticised frequently by the United Nations.
Last month, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued a personal plea to Turnbull to review the nation’s boat turn-back policy and expressed deep concern about offshore processing and detention.
In September, the UN’s special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, Francois Crepeau, cancelled his Australian visit because he said the Border Force Act would discourage detention center workers from disclosing information, and the government had refused to guarantee that professionals and staff would not be prosecuted under the new secrecy provisions of the Border Force Act for speaking with him.
Burnside spoke of a recent meeting with a doctor who spent a year on Manus, after spending his professional career working in the prison system in Australia.
"He maintained that the conditions in which detainees are kept [on Manus] and the way they're treated is 100 times worse than he has seen in any Australian prison including maximum security," he said, adding that these are people who have not even committed any offense.
Burnside said that the doctor had told him that for detainees such daily chores as going to the toilet are an issue of degradation.
"They have to apply for toilet paper and nominate how many squares they want," he said.
Burnside told Anadolu Agency that he believes "the barely concealed purpose of the whole set up [offshore processing and detention centers] is to break the spirit of the asylum seekers so they’ll abandon their claim for asylum and return to where they’ve come from."
LETTER PUBLISHED ON BURNSIDE’S WEBSITE
30/11/15
Hello Dear Mr Malcolm Turnbull and Peter Dutton.
As the refugees and asylum seekers trapped in Manus Island detention we would like to request you something different this time.
As previously we wrote and asked for help and there was no respond to our request to be freed out of detention we realized that there are no differences between us and rubbish but a bunch of slaves that helped to stop the boats by living in hellish condition. The only difference is that we are very costly for the Australian tax payers and the Politicians as our job to “stop the boats” is done.
We would like to give you some recommendations to stop the waste of this huge amount of money ruining Australian’s reputation and to keep the Australian boarders safe forever.
1. A navy ship that can put us all on board and dump us all in the ocean. (HMAS is always available)
2. A gas chamber (DECMIL will do it with a new contract)
3. Injection of a poison. (IHMS will help for this)
This is not a joke or a satire and please take it serious.
We are dying in Manus gradually, every single day we are literarly tortured and traumatized and there is no safe country to offer us protection as DIBP says.
Best regards
Merry Christmas in advance
Manus refugees and asylum seekers.
NOTE * HMAS stands for Her Majesty's Australian Ship, DECMIL is the managing contractor for the Manus Refugee Transit Centre, while IHMS (International Health and Medical Services) is a private contractor providing medical assistance to Manus.
