Pressure on Malcolm Turnbull to change the way Australia responds to refugees escalated today after two letters calling for the closure of offshore processing centres were released.
Both letters reveal the inadequacies of Australia’s detention centres. One is penned by 1800 Australian academics and the other with over 100 signatures of past and present Nauru employees.
The letters ask that asylum seekers be brought directly to Australia.
The release of both letters comes a week after the Nauru files were published– the largest collection of documents leaked since Australia made detention legally mandatory for asylum in 1992.
The Guardian leaked the files which contain about 2000 incident reports disclosed by Nauru staff. They reveal a culture of trauma and abuse inflicted on children and women living in Australia’s refugee processing centres.
This morning, employees from Save the Children, IHMS and Broadspectrum put their names to a letter, which states that the Prime Minister’s proposed inquiry into the operation of these centres falls short of an appropriate response.
It says evidence of abuse and violence has already been given, but was not looked at thoroughly in previous investigations.
‘This cannot continue,” wrote former coordinator of, Save the Children’s child protection team in Nauru Shivani Keecha.
‘I worked on Nauru while several previous investigations and inquiries were held. Nothing changed.’
‘We know these centres cause unacceptable harm. We need to bring these people to Australia and start rebuilding their lives.’
Both letters call for a similar response: to abolish mandatory detention and to initiate comprehensive law reform that ensures Australia upholds its international obligations regarding the seeking of asylum.
“Such an approach recognises that it is lawful to seek asylum and that people should not be penalised for how they arrive in Australia,” reads the Academics for Refugees open letter to the Prime Minister.
Since the release of both letters, The Prime Minster’s economics speech in Melbourne was today interrupted by activists protesting against the detention regime.
The protesters were led out of the venue by security.
Image via Flickr Creative Commons
