This is a photo of about 300 letters posted to detainees on Manus Island have been returned unopened.
Some of them, no doubt, were addressed to people who have left Manus and returned to their country of origin.
The objective of the detention system as it operates on Manus is to break the spirit of people held there so they will give up any hope of protection and prefer to face persecution at home than face persecution at the hands of Australia and its contractors:
TRANSFIELD SERVICES
WILSON SECURITY
IHMS (International Health & Medical Services)
Those companies – Australian companies – are collaborating with the Australian Government in one of the most shameful operations this country has ever been involved in: the deliberate mistreatment of asylum seekers who have sought protection in Australia.
Any group of people who (innocent of any offence) are locked up indefinitely in appalling conditions are eager to receive friendly messages from outside. Common sense suggests this, and experience shows it. The Australian government simply says that asylum seekers do not want to receive letters.
The government is lying when it says this.
The Department of Immigration is lying when it says this.
The greatest threat to Australia is not terrorism, but people like Tony Abbott and Peter Dutton, who are willing to inflict misery on innocent people in order to hold on to political power.
Tony Abbott and Peter Dutton both deserve to go down in history as the worst people ever to hold high office in this country.
Atrocious
I know from experience that these letters make a difference. I attended a fund raising event in Ballarat in 2010 and offered to correspond with an asylum seeker. I was allocated a Tamil man who had reasonable English. We emailed each other at Christmas Island and later Curtin Detention Centre. He was released from detention and we met him in Melbourne on 1/2/2011. That moment was memorable to me as he stood back, kissed the ground, stood up and with tears in his eyes he said “you saved my life”. If I had not kept writing to him he said he would have sunk into such deep depression he would not have survived the horrors of detention. I cannot use his name as he shortly to seek Australian citizenship. He believes in a miracle that it will be granted, just the same as when he had to seek an independent judicial review and was eventually recognised as a refugee.
I believe the asylum seekers do want to receive letters but what is missing is the assistance needed to help them to reply to these letters. This is a service that the government should be offering, not saying they don’t want the letters.