#seekingasylumisahumanright — Public Fediverse posts

This policy of #DeliberateCruelty from the Australian government was intended to deter other #refugees from exercising their legal right under international law to flee to Australia and seek asylum.
#SeekingAsylumIsAHumanRight

These policies were for many years supported by a majority of the Australian public, through a combination of #Murdoch media #disinformation and a culture of xenophobic #racism woven deeply into a #SettlerColonialNation.

It is worth noting the moral cost of embracing these inhumane immigration policies. Immense human suffering and many lives unnecessarily lost, plus who knows how many refugees who failed to find safety elsewhere? But also the injection into public discourse and imagination the poisonous idea that we have collectively given each other permission to instrumentalize the lives and suffering of innocents, that it is somehow ok to inflict unnecessary cruelty on one group in order to communicate a message of hatred to a different group.
#auspol

Behrouz Boochani arrived at Christmas Island (controlled by Australia) but was forcibly relocated from here to another country, ultimately being detained on Manus Island, PNG, in an Australian-funded and operated concentration camp. Along with hundreds of other single men, he was locked up there for over six years, without access to lawyers, adequate healthcare or nutrition, or potential for actual refuge and freedom. Meanwhile, many hundreds of women, children and families were being similarly detained in an Australian-run and funded camp on the micronation of Nauru.

According to the Australian government, Behrouz's only options were to return to Iran, where his life was in danger and most of his colleagues had disappeared, or to rot in a tropical prison in conditions worse than those experienced by convicted murders in Australia. Australian government ministers (under a succession of four PMs from two parties) repeatedly pronounced that there was no chance that any of those locked up on Manus Island or Nauru would ever come to Australia.
#auspol #SeekingAsylumIsAHumanRight #OffshoreDetention