Saturday, January 17, 2015

Refugees in Detention on Manus Island



A refugee is someone who seeks asylum in another country because they feel their life is threatened if they don't leave their homeland.

So, refugees eventually find themselves in detention centers, and in many instances they are held for a very long time.

Usually this lengthy period of detention is because it takes an extraordinary length of time to establish the identity of the refugee. Why so long?
Probably because the refugee has destroyed or lost or  all documentation, including passports before making the desperate and final leg of their journey to the country of desired asylum.
http://refugeeactioncoalitionsydney.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/factsheet-re-no-id-papers.pdf

And, eventually, these refugees become frustrated with the long period of detention and indefinite wait to be released, so they resort to desperate measures of self harm,such as swallowing razor blades, hunger strikes or sewing their lips together as a form of protest.
http://www.news.com.au/national/desperate-asylum-seekers-resort-to-self-harm-in-manus-island-protests/story-fncynjr2-1227186748067

Now wait a minute, aren't these refugees grateful that their life is no longer in danger? Isn't the imminent threat to their lives the reason they sought asylum?


1 comment:

Kirsten N. Namskau said...

Hi Lexen.
You know. . . it's often the people WITH money who becomes refugee.
The ordinary people have neither money nor connections.
Some of the refugees are criminal in their own country, waiting for death-penalty, so they flee to another country, only to continue their criminality.
Some are pioneers to convert the world into their religion and politic, by slowly enter a political party in the country they move to.
By the way. .. I try to open my blog again after 7 years of trial from Hell.
http://kirsten-namskaus-blogg.blogspot.dk/

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