Dreamer Easy

Chip in to take Peter Dutton's cruelty to court #Season4Justice: Mums 4 Refugees and Grandmothers against Detention of Refugee Children NSW fundraiser for the National Justice Project, who provide urgent pro bono legal help to people on Nauru and Manus.

Broken Men in Paradise (New York Times, 9 December 2016). "The world's refugee crisis knows no more sinister exercise in cruelty than Australia's island prisons."

Norway pension fund told to get out of Australian offshore detention business (SMH, 27 November 2016) "The Australia Institute claims the pension fund's investment in Ferrovial is at odds with its commitment to high ethical standards and is not widely known in Norway." (Here's their press release.)

Existence of 'pivotal' letter from Scott Morrison on boat turnbacks revealed (GA, 28 November 2016): "Document sought in FoI case purports to authorise possibly unlawful return of asylum seekers to Indonesia."

Nauru blocking release of information about asylum seekers, court documents show (GA, 30 November 2016): "Documents filed by the immigration department to the Administrative Appeal Tribunal cite Nauru's objection as a key reason to block a freedom of information request."

'We are still suffering': detainees on Manus and Nauru speak – in pictures (GA, 7 December 2016)

Remaining two refugees in Cambodia rue leaving Nauru (SMH, 13 March 2016) | Tracking down two refugees in Cambodia (SMH, 19 March 2016) | Greens refer $55 million refugee resettlement deal with Cambodia to the Auditor General (SMH, 13 March 2016). Sickness, poverty, misery - and Australian lies.

Asylum seeker who suffered heart attack on Manus to be taken to Australia (GA, 23 March 2016) | Manus detainee flown off island for medical treatment after collapsing (ABC, 23 March 2016). Let him stay.

Detainees on Nauru continue their rolling protests, after 1,000 days plus in detention. (Huffington Post, 23 March 2016)

Figures from The Weekend Australian (19-20 March, 2016): "Right now, a record 13,679 people are registered with the UNHCR in Indonesia to go through the formal refugee resettlement process - compared to 8332 in 2013. In 2015, the UNHCR submitted close to 1000 cases to resettlement countries but just 600 departed." The article, "Time for Asia to shoulder the burden of asylum settlement", claims that asylum seekers who reached Indonesia would leave there at once for Australia by boat, but are now registering with the UNHCR instead. The result: "... asylum-seekers in Indonesia are now waiting up to two years for their first formal interview, with little means of support... Unless regional nations showed a willingness to pitch in, and Australia overturned its refusal to accept even UNHCR-referred refugees who arrived in Indonesia after 2014, that situation would only deteriorate, [UNHCR Indonesia representative] Mr Vargas warned." (my emphasis) We've closed the "queue"? No wonder people are still getting on boats.

Australia signs landmark regional agreement to tackle people smuggling (GA, 24 March 2016): the non-binding deal, part of the forty-five nation Bali Process, recommends that member states "explore potential temporary protection and local-stay arrangements for asylum seekers and refugees" and "explore alternatives to detention for vulnerable groups".

Immigration Department broke law by publishing asylum seekers' private details (SMH, 14 November 2015) | Asylum seeker data breach case bound for high court after Peter Dutton appeals (GA, 21 March 2016)

The big news of the last couple of weeks is that both the previous Labor and the current Coalition governments have paid bribes to people smugglers. In the Coalition's case, those bribes were paid to smugglers to take their passengers back to Indonesia in two boats provided by Australia - a "suicide mission".

The bribes, totalling $US31,000, may have broken Australian law. The asylum seeker vessel was stopped in international waters.

(The government has refused to deny the allegations or to hand over relevant documents to the Senate. Both current Leader of the Opposition Bill Shorten and former PM Julia Gillard have refused to deny that smugglers were paid for intelligence under Labor governments.)

As well as encouraging the people smugglers in their business, the bribe endangered the asylum seekers aboard; when one vessel ran out of fuel, its passengers were moved to the other boat, which then crashed into a reef.

By contrast, in the face of the Rohingya crisis, Malaysia and Indonesia have said they will stop turning asylum seeker boats away.

Indonesia's president-elect Joko Widodo has told our PM it's unacceptable for the Australian navy to enter Indonesian waters when turning back asylum seeker boats. Immigration Minister Scott Morrison retorted that Indonesia has benefitted from the turnbacks, as they have stopped people-smuggling, which the haven't. Neither country mentioned the thousands of refugees and asylum seekers trapped in Indonesia.

Seven months after the attacks on asylum seekers at the Manus Island detention centre, 87 detainees still await medical treatment which cannot be provided at the camp, including a man with bullet fragments in his back. The delay in providing medical attention inside and outside the detention centre cost Hamid Khazaei his life. Conditions at the camp are filthy, contributing to detainee's poor health; skin infections are routine.

Gay asylum seekers at Manus who fled persecution in Iran fear resettlement in Papua New Guinea, where homosexuality can be punished with more than ten years in jail. They are also experiencing bullying within the camp.

Manus Island's local government has halted construction of new facilities at the detention centre and is threatening to close the centre unless the billion-dollar assistance package is renegotiated, citing issues such as the large difference in salaries for local and imported staff at the camp.

In September, hard drives were stolen from the Nauru detention centre's offices. Nothing had been done to secure the drives. The private information therein is potentially extremely dangerous to detainees, containing asylum seekers' case information and records of complaints against staff at the camp, including reports of physical and sexual assaults on children and women. The government alleges Save the Children workers fabricated the reports. Detainees were shown a video of Tony Abbott telling them they would not be settled in Australia; the subsequent outbreak of self-harm and suicide attempts were attributed by the government to coaching by STC.

The detention centre on Nauru lacks adequate water for washing and laundry due to a breakdown in equipment. (Thankfully, drinking water is supplied in bottles.) Requests by asylum seekers for basic necessities including clothing, mosquito nets, children's shoes, and sanitary napkins largely go unmet.

Nauru itself may shortly run out of money.

On to Indonesia, our neighbour to the north, a country which does not allow refugees to settle and therefore is a source of many of the "boat people" trying to reach Australia. There's been tension all month between the two countries over our government's "turn back" policy.

First, though, the serious allegations of mistreatment and violence perpetrated on African asylum seekers by Royal Australian Navy personnel who towed their boat back to Indonesia. According to Indonesian police, ten of the asylum seekers required medical treatment, seven of them for severe burns on their hands. They told police that RAN personnel forced them to hold onto hot metal pipes from the ship's engine, after they insisted on being allowed to use the toilet. They also stated that Navy personnel kicked and punched asylum seekers.

The Australian military and government have dismissed the allegations outright, with PM Tony Abbott stating "These are just claims without any apparent facts to back them up", even after photos and videos of burns and bruises emerged in the media. However, the allegations come at the same time as the RAN investigates into connections between Navy members and a racist anti-immigration group, the Australian Defence League. (The Navy's response, that they have a strict social media policy and violations will be punished, indicates that racism is tolerated by the RAN as long as it's not on display to the public.)

The Indonesian police may be unable to proceed further because of questions over exactly where the alleged torture took place; they're communicating with the AFP in hopes of establishing this. Australia's government says it will send officials to cooperate with the Indonesian investigation "to ensure that these allegations are scotched". The UNHCR is attempting to corroborate the allegations.