free Behrouz from Manus Prison

The MEAA (Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance) is collecting signatures from writers in support of Behrouz Boochani. Details here

See here and here for earlier blogs about his book, No Friend but the Mountains.

Writing through Fences

The true knowledge of Australian political realities does not lie within the phoney puppet show of the try hards Morrison and Shorten but is contained in the writings of the oppressed who from other countries attempted the journey to "free" Australia and for their troubles and suffering were then incarcerated by our government.

Behrouz dedicated his amazing book, No Friend but the Mountains to Janet Galbraith, "who is a bird". This is explained on page xvii. Behrouz sometimes uses a pen name and they discussed birds. The Pacific Heron is a bird that flies between Manus Prison and Australia.

Looking further we discover that Janet co-ordinates Writing Through Fences which supports the writing of incarcerated or previously detained refugees:

Writing Through Fences aims to create a safe place in which writers and artists can explore their ideas, creativity, experiences and identities within, before and despite immigration detention. We aim to open a place to re-member, a place to launch our work from, and to push aside walls that would attempt to contain and destroy us and our work. We believe that creation is necessary to ward off the killing effects of destruction.

Behrouz Boochani

Reading Behrouz Boochani's magnificent book, No Friend But the Mountains makes it very, very clear that the Australian Government has systematically tortured asylum seekers and refugees.

The Immigration Minister who introduced this regime was Scott Morrison (our current PM), who often refused to answer questions about the status of asylum seekers (see here for more detail)

Further reference:
Australian Government must act following damning comments by Former President of Nauru (April 18, 2019)

Nauru mental health situation equivalent to 'victims of torture', Medecins Sans Frontieres says ( 3 Dec 2018)

Australia subjected refugees to crimes against humanity, class actions allege (10 Dec 2018)

how syrians can return

https://act.thesyriacampaign.org/sign/we-want-to-go-home

Go to the above link to sign the petition. 

I’m writing this to you from a refugee camp in Germany. All the Syrians here are so grateful for the welcome people have given us but we want to live in Syria, not Germany.

I was 22 when the fighting started in 2011. I was living in a neighbourhood called Ghouta, a short drive from Damascus. A year after the uprising the regime of Bashar al-Assad placed Ghouta under siege - this means nothing comes in or out - no food, no medicine, nothing. A year after that the regime attacked us with chemical weapons and more than a thousand were gassed to death. For years they have also dropped barrel bombs and missiles on us from regime aircraft. Normally we got struck eight times a day. How could we continue to survive that hell on earth?

I had to cross twenty checkpoints on fake documents to make it out of Syria. Each time your heart stops as you know that there is a chance you will be arrested and taken away. I made it out and survived a death boat. I have survived so many ways a human being can be killed.

At home I was a medical student. We had so many attacks I assisted more surgeries than most surgeons do by the time they retire. My dream is to only have to perform ‘normal surgeries’, what I trained for, not picking shrapnel from bombs out of children's limbs.

We cannot go back while the war continues which is why we are asking for you to do everything you can to stop the war. All your governments agree there needs to be a political transition in Syria but no amount of words have made it happen. The Assad regime is still in power, killing seven times more civilians than Isis.

World leaders have to act to stop the bombs from the sky. We can survive sniper fire, chemicals but the barrel bombs are unbearable. A no-fly zone or creation of safe zones would save lives instantly. And I would be the first person on the plane home.

Right now everybody in Europe is talking about us refugees. But not many are listening to us. Please sign this petition to Europe’s leaders asking them to do more to stop the bombs and help us return home.

Abo Adnan

a report from Turkey about Syrian refugees

From a list-serv I am on:

"We have, in Istanbul/Turkey, millions of Syrian families now, approximately 2 million, in metros, in metro stations, in streets, usually couples with 2 children in complete incapacity about what to do, how to survive. No shelter, no food, absolutely nothing.

In newspapers, it reads that Syrian girls or women are bought at 5000 turkish liras (2500 usd) as second or third wives..."

Possibly, in Australia, the mainstream media doesn't report the real news because we would die of shame for not doing more to help the wretched of the earth.