TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN
I.. (name)….. from (location) urge (insert human rights group) to sanction Australia and exclude Australia from participation in all international humanitarian and human rights decision making processes.
Australia has been committing crimes for over 26 years against refugees who are seeking protection by boats. Lack of transparency and accountability in Australian run detention centres is something that has been widely reported and acknowledged by International human rights groups including the UN. There have been many inquiries and many reports of deaths and sexual abuse within these camps yet nothing has changed because the Australian government is not being held accountable. Refugee cases have been mishandled, unfairly dismissed and processed without proper adherence to refugee rights protocol and this should stop immediately.
There have been 36 deaths in Australian detention centres since 2010. There have been multiple incidents of abuse and sexual violence against asylum seeker/refugee adults and children. People who are fleeing harm in their country of origin, experience a compounding of their trauma under Australian government policies that are designed to punish people who are exercising their human right to seek asylum in Australia. Depression, suicide ideation and other mental illness is pervasive and often a direct result of the experience of detention itself. The Australian government’s own detention records in just a year to July 2015, indicate that there were 188 incidents of self-harm involving asylum seekers at Nauru (about one every two days) and about recorded 55 incidents of self-harm at Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island. The detainees’ treatment within the camps, along with the indefinite detention they experience meets the definition of torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment under International law.
We should not wait until one more refugee is murdered, sexually abused, tortured, or refouled by Australia.
Seeking asylum is not a crime and it is a universal human right.
Please take immediate action and sanction Australia until mandatory detention and refoulement of Asylum seekers and Refugees is abolished in Australia.
Regards,
(name)
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