Refugees Daily - Internal Global Press Review

During the past three years, the only 'laws' applied to us have been force and dictatorship. We are like people smitten with plague, left on isolated islands

Why is hope dangerous?

Central to the policy of exiling refugees to remote islands is the shattering of hope for a future, it is the breaking of people.

Hope is like a secret code enabling refugees to be resilient and to resist the ever-mounting pressure to return to their country of origin, even as life there is impossible.

To achieve this goal, the minister for immigration and border protection, Peter Dutton, appears on TV screens every now and then reiterating that refugees on Manus Island will never come to Australia and will be settled in Papua New Guinea.

The governing system of the prison on Manus and the companies working to implement this are focused on impacting the mind and spirit of refugees in a systematic manner to destroy our hopes for a future.

During the past three years, they have endeavoured to shatter our hopes by any means and to carve into our minds that there is no way ahead, there is no safe future for us.

The immigration officers arrive in the prison every week and repeat: "You have to live in PNG." This is reinforced by security officers, case managers and through notices attached to the bulletin boards inside the prison.

In recent days the immigration officers have frightened us again as after the supreme court hearing that says that the prison is illegal, they have officially declared that we have to live in PNG or return back to where we came from.

They have declared that we will not have any future. However, what is different is that this time they have said to us that we can obtain a visa for another country and leave here.

We understand that this choice is simply more propaganda.

This is one of those choices that, in practice, is not a choice because none of the refugees have the ability to apply for a visa for another country when they are kept in the Manus prison.

We ask the Australian government: "If a country like New Zealand accepts us and we are granted a visa, will the Australian government permit us to go there?" When New Zealand offered previously, Australia refused.

During the past three years, despite all the pressure imposed by immigration on me, I have not submitted my protection case to the PNG government. But it was suddenly announced to me that I had been conferred refugee status and that I have no choice but to live in PNG.

When I asked for reasons as to why and how they concluded I was a refugee they responded by saying that they had collected my personal information from media and PNG had agreed with Australia that I would receive a positive refugee finding.

What becomes glaringly obvious in this is that any claim to this being a real refugee assessment process is false. My rights to offer my case for refugee status have been taken from me, my human rights to make decisions about my life have been stolen.

What shocks me is the fact that the ?social media accounts of refugee advocates are monitored? – they are spied upon

It's clear that the the Australian Department of Immigration and Border Protection monitors the Facebook pages of refugee advocates, as revealed by the department's head, Michael Pelluzzo, to Senate estimates. Such monitoring is followed up by investigations and the information collated is recorded. Those records were provided to the Senate in an attempt to back up the department's routine accusations that advocates are giving "false hope" to refugees on Manus and Nauru.

I came across my name among the names of other advocates in these records provided to the Senate, along with a copy of one of my Facebook posts that detailed the time I climbed a tree in Foxtrot compound in the Manus prison in protest.

I do not want to respond to the monitoring of my Facebook page, rather what shocks me is the fact that the social media accounts of refugee advocates are monitored – they are spied upon.

One of the fundamental and basic rights of a free and democratic society is respect for freedom of speech; that every citizen has the right to express their political thoughts and views, whether it be on Facebook or in any form of media.

When DIBP accuses advocates of providing hope to 2,000 refugees incarcerated in Manus and Nauru prisons they are indicating that giving hope to prisoners is wrong and is against a law.

If we ask why the DIBP spends money and time on investigating those who provide hope, we can understand that the concept of hope itself is seen as dangerous.

The Australian government, accompanied by the PNG government, has kidnapped us and kept us in limbo, acting against international laws, and denying us access to any court that may bring us justice. The high court of Australia legalised our exile, and the PNG court has not been able to bring justice to us.

We are people effectively deemed outside of any law.

During the past three years, the only "laws" applied to us have been force and dictatorship. We are like people smitten with plague, exiled from a civilised society and left on isolated islands.

For us there is no way ahead towards the future and no way behind to the past.

From the Australian government's point of view, we do merely and solely have two choices, but we are human and our rights as human beings tell us there is a third choice as well, the choice of resistance against torture.