According the the Operation Sovereign Borders December Update there were no so called illegal maritime arrivals transferred to Australian Immigration authorities.
And no illegal maritime arrivals were transferred to regional processing centres. This doesn’t confirm whether any people attempted to seek asylum in Australia by boat.
The report also mentions the 2 year anniversary of the policy to turn boats back to their country of origin. It claims 695 people on 23 boats have been returned to their country of origin (the country the boat left from most likely Indonesia).
Of course they claim this is saving lives at sea. But this logic is nonsensical.
How can you save lives at sea by keeping boats at sea? Do they know what happened to the people when they returned to Indonesia? Did they even get back to Indonesia?
I’ve read reports of boats washing up on remote islands and people dying trying to get to a habitated area..
There’s also the claim that refugees on Nauru are ‘free’ because they are no longer in detention centres. And that
sending 72 children, who are in detention in Australia, to Nauru will be freeing them from detention.
They are free in so far as they can travel around the 21 sq km Island. Where the government is in turmoil and rape and theft are common, especially if you are ‘not a local’.
“[Nauruan] children from the school are so bad. They tell us bad words and when you want to go to the playground, they will hit us. Nauru is so dirty and so small.”
Meanwhile the Department of Immigration and pandering to racists has committed to spending over $1M for medals for its Border Farce staff.
Underlying this humor is the knowledge of the torment and psychological and physical harm which is being perpetrated by the Australian government against some of the worlds most vulnerable people.
One of those people and someone who is able to allow his inner turmoil to flow into words for others to read is Kurdish Iranian Behrouz Boochani. Below is some of his writing.
From Manus prison for Australian civil society……Australia and Australian society are in a susceptible stage. The fight of civil society with the fascist state has reached to a sensitive point.
During last 3 years the Australian government has acted dictatorially and tortured asylum seekers. Australia’s civil society and human rights activists have not been stationary and are fighting against this dictatorial system by many means but the state has not shown any flexibility and has instead increased strain and stress on asylum seekers.
The behavior of a dictatorial state shows us that it does not value civil society and despite all actions will keep its ways! It is a dangerous occurrence for Australian society because if civil society is defeated in this fight and the state keeps on with its policy civil society will be weakened and the state will continue this pattern in the future. Dictatorship is like a cancer and can easily affect all the portions of a society.
The fight between the Australian state and civil society is a very sensitive fight. It is not only for tortured asylum seekers, this is a vital and significant fight for all Australian people also. It is a fight for the kind of humanity our world needs.We should make the fascist state understand that it can not simply ignore humanity and human rights emphasizing that our fight with Australia is not just for some thousands of refugees but a fight for humanity, justice and peace!!!
Imagine if Australian civil society were able to defeat Peter Dutton? What would the future look like? Many thanks. Behrouz Boochani.
Reblogged this on disaccords.