You know something isn’t right when even the Australian Immigration Department is criticising immigration policy.
The Immigration Department's assessment of its own detention centre this past week has found what we've known all along - the conditions in the Manus Island asylum seeker processing centre are inhumane.1
It's time to close Manus for good. Will you sign the petition demanding both parties act to immediately shut down the Manus Island detention centre?
http://www.getup.org.au/campaigns/refugees/shut-down-manus
This damning report will come as no surprise to the tens of thousands of GetUp members who helped share the story of a young woman detained on Manus, and joined our campaign to expose the truth. However, what is surprising is that since the release of the assessment two people from opposite sides of the political aisle have come out in opposition to the detention centre.
It's a rare moment indeed when politicians from across the political divide agree on anything, but this week both Labor Senator Doug Cameron and Liberal backbencher Judi Moylan went out on a limb to defend the human rights of asylum seekers.2
Senator Cameron has called for asylum seekers to be processed in Australia and condemned the conditions on Manus Island.
"If we have people in conditions where their health is in danger, that they are physically in danger because of the humidity and an electric shock, then we need to do something about it." 2
"It's expensive, it's repulsive and it's repressive," were the words used by Ms Moylan to describe offshore processing, saying parliament has taken the "easy option".
"It's a matter of putting these people out of sight, out of mind." 2
We couldn’t have said it better ourselves. The "Out of Sight, Out of Mind" campaign, run by tens of thousands of GetUp members in partnership with child advocacy group, ChilOut, brought attention to the conditions facing the men, women and children living inside the Manus Island detention centre. Our exclusive interview with a young woman inside the detention centre was viewed by over a million people when it aired as a Channel Ten exclusive, a national television ad and on this website.
GetUp members made the children dance and laugh with excitement when they learned their voices were finally being heard.
The public pressure built by our movement influenced the government's decision to fly all pregnant women and their families out of Manus Island to have their claims processed in Australia. A sure sign that this facility is completely unsuitable for the children still living there.
It's obvious conditions inside the detention centre aren't improving, in fact they're only getting worse. The Immigration Department's submission highlights numerous problems - no reliable power supply, limited access to drinking water, high temperatures and humidity, mosquitoes, risk of self-harm and mental health problems - the list goes on.
These conditions are unsafe, unsanitary and unacceptable - especially for children.
Call on Immigration Minister Brendan O'Connor and Shadow Immigration Minister Scott Morrison to shut down the Manus Island detention centre now.
Sign your name to the petition to let them know that shipping asylum seekers offshore might put them out of sight, but they won't be put out of our minds.
We won’t sit by while they suffer: http://www.getup.org.au/campaigns/refugees/shut-down-manus
With hope,
the GetUp team.
[1] "Immigration criticises own Manus asylum centre", 16 April 2013. Available here.
[2] "Labor Senator seizes on Manus Island report", 17 April 2013. Available here.
Comments
I don't get it
What I don't get is that the Australian population as a whole isn't screaming with rage in the streets over the ways refugees and Aborigines are treated.
We are sure, are we not, that Immigration, Gillard and Abbott will now rush to apologise to and repair the damage they have done to all who passed through Manus and are still suffering there.
What a cruel country....people here care more for mistreated animals than human beings.
An ABC Four Corners report on Manus and Nauru
Transcript at http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2013/04/29/3745276.htm
Close the camps of cruelty
4 Corners has shown yet again why the camps on Manus Island and Nauru must be closed, and refugee families brought to Australia.
Join us to close them
Close the camps of cruelty
The shocking revelations on ABC’s Four Corners demonstrate that the Government must immediately bring refugee families back to Australia and shut down the camps of cruelty on Manus Island and Nauru.
Sign our petition calling on the Government to close these camps of cruelty now.
We heard support workers, interpreters, doctors and even local politicians say that Australia’s offshore detention camps in Nauru and Manus Island are nothing but factories of misery and mental illness.
I was appalled at the harsh conditions I saw when I visited Manus in January. Like the UNHCR and Amnesty International, I called for the families to be brought back to Australia immediately.
Julia Gillard has said the Government needs to plug a $12 billion hole in the budget. She should start by shutting down the offshore detention network. We know that it is 90% cheaper to process refugees on the mainland.
Punishing refugees and their children in cruel camps, with dangerously inadequate medical supplies, unlivable conditions, sky-rocketing mental illness and no timely processing is inhumane and completely unacceptable.
Just like John Howard, Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott think they can win votes by punishing refugees.
Sign this petition to let them know otherwise.
Thank you for your support.
Sarah Hanson-Young