Open letter: Living in the hell called Nauru.
Identity withheld
I am writing as a mother in Nauru house of detention. After 10 months of being detained on Christmas Island, my three-member family was brought here: myself and my husband and my son who is not yet three. As I knew we were going to be forcefully taken to Nauru, I felt sadness and spent all the night crying in misery. Any time I looked into face of my son, I asked myself, what is his sin to be punished harshly like this? What wrong we have done to receive such treatment? Just as I heard an officer saying that we were going to be transferred to Nauru, I suddenly felt all the miseries in the world. I kept crying all the time we were leaving.
We were put in isolation on Christmas Island. They checked us for nearly 10 hours with no break – they kept searching our bags and threw half of our items away. We were not allowed to wear shoes. They did not let us to tie our hair. They checked behind ears, inside nose, beneath tongue and hair. Big bully officers. My little son was scared and kept crying.
Do you know what the meaning of hopeless and helpless is? Do you know what is the meaning of I got tired of being alive?
After 10 hours of inspection, we were put into a bus accompanied by a large number of officers and then onto an airplane. The journey took eight hours. My son neither ate nor slept for 24 hours. You may not believe that my son really didn’t sleep for 24 hours, but he felt such anxiety.
For the complete article, press the link.
Tags: afghanistan, Christmas Island.Cambodia, Iraq, Nauru, Red Cross, UN
Oosterman Treats Blog 
October 26, 2014 at 9:04 am |
I can see the problem clearly enough. Assuming there is one I cannot see the solution. This sort of thing (though not nearly so extreme) is going on in many places.
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October 26, 2014 at 9:55 am |
The Government is brutalising boat people with the aim to stop them from coming here. They come here to seek a better life and are escaping from war and mayhem inflicted on them from all sides including our own government.
To do bad things ( demonising and brutalising boat people) in order to achieve an outcome is wrong.
The UN and UNHCR are forever pointing out the illegal part of our Government’s behaviour.
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October 26, 2014 at 8:10 pm |
Some people seem to think to achieve an outcome you have to do bad things. “Der Zweck heiligt die Mittel.” The end justifies the means. I wonder where this kind of thinking originated. Does anyone know?
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October 26, 2014 at 10:48 pm |
I don’t know. Perhaps it comes from a primitive urge to punish people to get ‘even’ with own non-admitted inadequacies. (Lack of empathy, consideration etc.)
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October 26, 2014 at 10:53 pm
Certainly not very ‘Christian’, is it? And our culture is supposed to be based on Christian values.
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October 26, 2014 at 10:27 pm |
Horrible. What can be done? No one seems to know or care.
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October 26, 2014 at 10:53 pm |
An independent member of Parliament, Mr Andrew Wilkie, is seeking to have our Prime Minister Tony Abbott, and minister of Immigration Mr Scott Morrison, to face the International Court at The Hague.
http://beyondthehague.com/
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/oct/22/asylum-seekers-andrew-wilkie-takes-australia-to-international-criminal-court
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October 26, 2014 at 11:35 pm |
NATO, together with Australia and New Zealand, destroy any hope of survival for these refugees in their home countries – as our overt military campaigns and covert proxy wars destroy their homes, crops and any infrastructure that might provide them a livelihood.
Their only hope of surviving is to escape to one of the countries who wage these wars of conquest while protecting their domestic population from the direct effects of living in a war zone.
The tiny minority who manage to escape are treated worse than animals – who ironically are protected by animal cruelty laws..
We don’t get many boat people in New Zealand, perhaps because our coast line offers few natural harbors.
Three cheers for Andrew Wilkie for trying to take Abbott to the ICC. He’s clearly a war criminal and it’s high time for him to be treated like one.
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October 27, 2014 at 2:34 am |
Amazingly the ABC let through this post on the Drum;
Reply Alert moderator
gerard oosterman:
27 Oct 2014 10:18:15am
The one thing this government will be remembered for, is the fact that a member of our present Parliament has written a letter to the ICC at The Hague attempting to seek justice for our asylum seekers.
Tony Abbott, and his 19-member cabinet, including the immigration minister, Scott Morrison are mentioned in the application which mentions crimes against humanity such as the forced relocation of people, to the Republic of Nauru or Papua New Guinea.
Can you imagine this could ever have happened in previous Governments, no matter from which side?
Reply Alert moderator
OpenMind:
27 Oct 2014 10:18:37am
A case in time to compare Tony Abbott’s guts and vision with G Whitlam’s. The Infrastructure Bank proposed by China has acquired
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October 27, 2014 at 3:24 pm |
A charge of crimes against humanity should stick, I can’t see how you could wriggle out of that, but it will take so long with lawyers involved and these people need humanity now!
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October 27, 2014 at 9:21 pm |
I would like to think it will. This Government always claims it prevents refugees from drowning. They now kill refugees by stealth taking away all hope and their humaneness. The contract signed with Cambodia, giving them $ 40.million to accept boat people from Australia. How bizarre.
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October 29, 2014 at 12:26 am
Honestly, Gerard, us Australians would not know how many seek asylum, how many come in boats, how many make landfall in Australia, how many are turned back by our navy, etc, etc. It’s now a military secret, and one may well be shot at sunrise for questioning anything.
Our PM is now sending soldiers to the Middle East to generate more asylum seekers.
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October 29, 2014 at 1:53 am
The armed forces sooner or later will produce a whistle blower and all will be revealed. It has happened already in the Private securities companies that are supposed to look after the concentration camps.
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October 29, 2014 at 12:11 am |
So very, very sad.
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October 29, 2014 at 1:23 am |
Horrible and inhuman. I feel for the people. What is the answer? We have a similar situation in the US. Too many people from south of the border want to escape poverty and the possibility of being killed by drug gangs. The US is over run with illegals and our welfare system is going broke. What to do? No one has an answer,.
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October 29, 2014 at 1:55 am |
The answer is to tax the rich more, much more.
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October 29, 2014 at 2:49 am
Yes, you have a great point there.
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