'Give them freedom' – Bishops denounce 6-year refugee detention
09 January 2019
STAFF WRITER | Catholic News Agency
PORT MORESBY - The bishops of Papua New Guinea have issued a renewed plea on behalf of the nearly 500 refugees and asylum seekers being held in indefinite detention in deteriorating conditions.
“These people have been away from their families for the sixth Christmas… it was just another night of detention on Manus Island,” said Fr Ambrose Pereira, communication secretary for the Catholic Bishops Conference of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.
Facing conditions of trauma, overcrowding, and lack of food, he said, “most of them survive thanks to medicines, mostly anti-depressants, anti-anxiety, anti-psychotics,” and many face serious side effects from taking the medications long-term without a prescription.
Pereira called the refugees’ situation “abuse and neglect,” and said it causes the Papua New Guinea bishops “great suffering.”
“This is not the way to treat human beings,” he said.
Australia has had a system of “third country processing” since 2012 for asylum seekers who come to Australia by boat without a valid visa. The system transfers the asylum seekers to other countries, where they are processed based on that country’s laws.
Many of those seeking asylum in Australia come from Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Iraq, and Iran, traveling by boat from Indonesia. They are typically intercepted by the Australian navy before reaching land, and are then sent to detention camps in Papua New Guinea and Nauru, a small Micronesian nation.
The government of Australia made an agreement with the government of PNG in 2013, providing that migrants sent to PNG from Australia would be settled there if they are found to be refugees. Otherwise they would be sent back to their country of origin or another country where they have legal residence.
Ahead of last November’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Port Moresby, the PNG government sent dozens of men who had been receiving specialized medical attention back to Manus Island, citing security needs. These men joined hundreds of other refugees and asylum seekers being held on the island.
In November, a report from Amnesty International and the Refugee Council of Australia documented serious declines in mental and physical health among the refugees in detention on Manus Island.
Three men had committed suicide, and many others had attempted suicide, the report said.
It decried the “brutal and illegal policy of offshore detention.” It pointed to a decrease in mental health resources and professionals available to the refugees and asylum seekers, as well as incidents of assault and robbery against them.
“The obvious answer to almost all health problems is to give them freedom and to reduce the damage caused by stress, trauma, overcrowding and malnutrition during their detention, as highlighted by numerous reports,” said Fr Pereira.
“Refugees are waiting for the day they are released, and we hope that 2019 will bring good news for them.”
The detention centre in Manus is a crime against humanity and a hell on earth and yet the UN is not doing anything constructive to support refugees.
The Catholic bishops are right but we have not seen an improved approach by the PNG or Australian governments.
All human beings - despite creed, colour and nationality - are same in values and they are priceless. We are created in the image of God, much higher than angels.
We are yet to hear a response or a better deal from the PNG and Australian governments not only about the Manus detention centre but also the worsening situation in West Papua.
Posted by: Philip Kai Morre | 09 January 2019 at 09:40 AM