Slow death on Manus, the sad story of Eaten Fish
February 17, 2017 5:38 PM Subscribe
(Content warning: attempted suicide, sexual assault, other awful stuff that goes on in Australia’s offshore gulags). Eaten Fish is the nom de plume of a 24-year-old Iranian cartoonist who has been imprisoned in a detention center in Papua New Guinea since trying to seek asylum in Australia by boat in 2013. Fish — real name Ali — has severe OCD and anxiety, and says he has been abused and sexually assaulted while in the prison camp.
He has nevertheless continued drawing to document his and others' suffering — and earned Cartoonist Rights Network International’s 2016 Award for Courage in Editorial Cartooning for his work.
Late last year, Fish’s refugee application was rejected, although supporters say he couldn’t take part in the interview process due to his deteriorating mental health. The PNG government has ordered him to return home, although Iran is refusing to take back rejected asylum seekers.
On January 29, authorities declared that Fish's claims of sexual assault were unsubstantiated, and said they’d move him from a protected area back to the camp’s general population. He has been on a hunger strike ever since, and is now down to 46.7 kilos (103 lbs).
Cartoonists around the world are drawing images of fish under the hashtag #AddAFish in solidarity and to demand the Australian government intervene to save his life.
He has nevertheless continued drawing to document his and others' suffering — and earned Cartoonist Rights Network International’s 2016 Award for Courage in Editorial Cartooning for his work.
Late last year, Fish’s refugee application was rejected, although supporters say he couldn’t take part in the interview process due to his deteriorating mental health. The PNG government has ordered him to return home, although Iran is refusing to take back rejected asylum seekers.
On January 29, authorities declared that Fish's claims of sexual assault were unsubstantiated, and said they’d move him from a protected area back to the camp’s general population. He has been on a hunger strike ever since, and is now down to 46.7 kilos (103 lbs).
Cartoonists around the world are drawing images of fish under the hashtag #AddAFish in solidarity and to demand the Australian government intervene to save his life.
There is nothing that fills me with more shame than the way we Australians are treating our asylum seekers. We're burdening a few hundred dispossessed people with all our national anxieties, a few centuries of racial tension, colonial angst, xenophobia, economic panic - if you can think of something that frightens the electorate, we've found a way to blame it on refugees.
We could not be any more on the wrong side of history if we tried, and believe me, we've been trying.
posted by Jilder at 7:59 PM on February 17, 2017 [18 favorites]
We could not be any more on the wrong side of history if we tried, and believe me, we've been trying.
posted by Jilder at 7:59 PM on February 17, 2017 [18 favorites]
For the Australians among MF: find your senators, MPs, and their contact details by your postcode and/or electorate. It's worth contacting them all, even if they aren't your direct MP. MPs have office hours, take phonecalls, read mail, read emails, and take appointments. At minimum they have an email address and an office. The same goes for the state party offices and they're worth contacting too since these policies are federal and pressure needs to happen from multiples places.
In general so few people bother to contact even their MPs about anything at all that a mass of people contacting about this can make a difference and get things booted up the chain quite far, quite quickly. It's really worth at least calling or emailing or writing a letter or making an appointment. Most will also take fax if they have a fax number listed.
posted by E. Whitehall at 9:18 PM on February 17, 2017 [6 favorites]
In general so few people bother to contact even their MPs about anything at all that a mass of people contacting about this can make a difference and get things booted up the chain quite far, quite quickly. It's really worth at least calling or emailing or writing a letter or making an appointment. Most will also take fax if they have a fax number listed.
posted by E. Whitehall at 9:18 PM on February 17, 2017 [6 favorites]
Imagine if, during Malcolm Turnbull's ill-fated conversation with Donald Trump, he'd said "Don't worry about it, Don, we'll take them instead." It would have been political suicide for him, but the media would have exploded and it would have been a pivotal moment in Australian history. Come on, Malc, it's not too late.
posted by superfish at 9:31 PM on February 17, 2017 [6 favorites]
posted by superfish at 9:31 PM on February 17, 2017 [6 favorites]
He could also accept New Zealand's offer to take 150 of the refugees — instead he rejected it again yesterday. This is so unimaginably cruel, it makes me sick.
posted by retrograde at 10:37 PM on February 17, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by retrograde at 10:37 PM on February 17, 2017 [4 favorites]
I would hold my horses here. I'm no expert on Australian immigration policy, but from a European's point of view, it has some legitimacy. Especially so after reading this article which tells that the policy was instituted far before Turnbull and upheld by both sides - for seemingly good reasons.
We may argue about why Australia is so strict with boat immigrants particularly while apparently accepting thousands who arrive orderly, but when you take into account what happens if the opposite (open arms) policy is put into place (as in Germany) you may wonder whether it might not be politically prudent to declare a strict rule as a deterrence.
I mean, ask yourself:
- do you want to save everyone in the world with a worry?
- if not, how do you choose who gets help? Who effectively lives and who dies?
It may sound inhuman and selfish (and I'd call it the Chinese way), but sometimes the thing that works best is mind your own business, don't let others disrupt it and extend help where help is most effective to the utmost of your capacity. In other words, help on your own terms.
posted by Laotic at 11:28 PM on February 17, 2017
We may argue about why Australia is so strict with boat immigrants particularly while apparently accepting thousands who arrive orderly, but when you take into account what happens if the opposite (open arms) policy is put into place (as in Germany) you may wonder whether it might not be politically prudent to declare a strict rule as a deterrence.
I mean, ask yourself:
- do you want to save everyone in the world with a worry?
- if not, how do you choose who gets help? Who effectively lives and who dies?
It may sound inhuman and selfish (and I'd call it the Chinese way), but sometimes the thing that works best is mind your own business, don't let others disrupt it and extend help where help is most effective to the utmost of your capacity. In other words, help on your own terms.
posted by Laotic at 11:28 PM on February 17, 2017
Laotic, tell me what's happened in Germany due to its humane treatment of refugees.
posted by ambrosen at 12:52 AM on February 18, 2017 [6 favorites]
posted by ambrosen at 12:52 AM on February 18, 2017 [6 favorites]
Okay, Laotic. We get maybe 2000 at most boat arrivals a year. At most. That's the peak number. Usually it's a few hundred a year. A couple of buses worth. We aren't Germany bordered by high density countries - we're literally in the middle of the ocean. We're never going to see the numbers that Germany is seeing.
And you need to go take a hard look at what's actually happening on Manus and Nauru before you make any claims as to how legitimate they are. They're torture camps. We're got people dying of septicemia, eating substandard food that has had teeth spat into it, with no safe water. We've kicked out impartial third party observers. The reports of physical assault and rape are endemic. And the refugees are not permitted to leave, and couldn't if they wanted to, for the "crime" of legally seeking refuge in a country that is supposedly friendly. We allow thousands and thousands of plane arrivals to stay every year - "boat people" are treated like this not even as a deterrent to others (because it doesn't work - hasn't worked in the whole time we've been doing it) but as a political football, booting these people around, labelling them as burdensome despite the fact our economy is literally built on the back of refugees, migrants and settlers. And a disgusting amount of them have their visa applications dragged out two, three years, then get approved anyway. It's costing us millions of dollars to torture these people, when they could be temporarily settled in Australia, with support from the community and their own diaspora, at drastically less cost finacially and significantly less trauma to them.
But we don't give a fuck. The trauma is the point. The torture is the point. It doesn't even serve as a detterent. All it is, as far as this Australian can see, is to make them a scapegoat for our national anxieties. Oh, those 300 or so non-English speaking people will drain the public purse on welfare, they're gunna rape our poor daughters, become petty criminals while somehow also taking everyone's jobs and imposing Sharia law. It's fucking ridiculous, and it's not even close in scope or scale to what's going on in Europe.
And frankly sir? Fuck your suggestion that we, a wealthy, well resourced country, can't take care of a few hundred desperate people. I take grave offense at the idea that a pool so small, so desperate should be drowned at sea or ritually killed by interment rather than settle them safely in a nation of migrants. We were enriched by every post-War wave of refugees we took. When the Cambodians and the Vietnamese started rowing here in piece-of-shit fishing boats they settled and they made us better. We aren't helping them. They're helping us, and all we have to do is not be fucking sadists to them in return.
posted by Jilder at 1:19 AM on February 18, 2017 [36 favorites]
And you need to go take a hard look at what's actually happening on Manus and Nauru before you make any claims as to how legitimate they are. They're torture camps. We're got people dying of septicemia, eating substandard food that has had teeth spat into it, with no safe water. We've kicked out impartial third party observers. The reports of physical assault and rape are endemic. And the refugees are not permitted to leave, and couldn't if they wanted to, for the "crime" of legally seeking refuge in a country that is supposedly friendly. We allow thousands and thousands of plane arrivals to stay every year - "boat people" are treated like this not even as a deterrent to others (because it doesn't work - hasn't worked in the whole time we've been doing it) but as a political football, booting these people around, labelling them as burdensome despite the fact our economy is literally built on the back of refugees, migrants and settlers. And a disgusting amount of them have their visa applications dragged out two, three years, then get approved anyway. It's costing us millions of dollars to torture these people, when they could be temporarily settled in Australia, with support from the community and their own diaspora, at drastically less cost finacially and significantly less trauma to them.
But we don't give a fuck. The trauma is the point. The torture is the point. It doesn't even serve as a detterent. All it is, as far as this Australian can see, is to make them a scapegoat for our national anxieties. Oh, those 300 or so non-English speaking people will drain the public purse on welfare, they're gunna rape our poor daughters, become petty criminals while somehow also taking everyone's jobs and imposing Sharia law. It's fucking ridiculous, and it's not even close in scope or scale to what's going on in Europe.
And frankly sir? Fuck your suggestion that we, a wealthy, well resourced country, can't take care of a few hundred desperate people. I take grave offense at the idea that a pool so small, so desperate should be drowned at sea or ritually killed by interment rather than settle them safely in a nation of migrants. We were enriched by every post-War wave of refugees we took. When the Cambodians and the Vietnamese started rowing here in piece-of-shit fishing boats they settled and they made us better. We aren't helping them. They're helping us, and all we have to do is not be fucking sadists to them in return.
posted by Jilder at 1:19 AM on February 18, 2017 [36 favorites]
I was writing something, but Jilder has it. I cannot even imagine being desperate enough to leave my whole family and pay someone to get onto a leaky boat. The fact that anyone would make that choice proves that they deserve better.
posted by superfish at 1:30 AM on February 18, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by superfish at 1:30 AM on February 18, 2017 [1 favorite]
Australia's network of offshore immigration detention centres could constitute a crime against humanity, according to a submission before the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Amnesty International says Nauru refugee policy breaks international human rights laws: Australia's policy of holding refugees on Nauru indefinitely amounts to a systematic violation of human rights and possibly constitutes torture, international human rights organisation Amnesty has said in a damning report.
posted by Jilder at 1:43 AM on February 18, 2017 [1 favorite]
Amnesty International says Nauru refugee policy breaks international human rights laws: Australia's policy of holding refugees on Nauru indefinitely amounts to a systematic violation of human rights and possibly constitutes torture, international human rights organisation Amnesty has said in a damning report.
posted by Jilder at 1:43 AM on February 18, 2017 [1 favorite]
You can email your MP via Amnesty's Bring Them Here campaign.
https://www.amnesty.org.au/act-now/ref803-bring-them-here/
posted by valetta at 2:54 AM on February 18, 2017 [1 favorite]
https://www.amnesty.org.au/act-now/ref803-bring-them-here/
posted by valetta at 2:54 AM on February 18, 2017 [1 favorite]
But we don't give a fuck. The trauma is the point. The torture is the point. It doesn't even serve as a detterent. All it is, as far as this Australian can see, is to make them a scapegoat for our national anxieties. Oh, those 300 or so non-English speaking people will drain the public purse on welfare, they're gunna rape our poor daughters, become petty criminals while somehow also taking everyone's jobs and imposing Sharia law. It's fucking ridiculous, and it's not even close in scope or scale to what's going on in Europe.
This. And at the end of the whole affair, when they are determined to be legitimate refugees, they resettle them in PNG. They make them choose between being resettled in a country of abject poverty (sorry PNG but your HDI is in the fucking toilet, another one of Australia's faults) and a war zone or being killed because of their sexuality or political opinion.
If that's not a crime against humanity it should be.
posted by Talez at 4:53 AM on February 18, 2017 [7 favorites]
This. And at the end of the whole affair, when they are determined to be legitimate refugees, they resettle them in PNG. They make them choose between being resettled in a country of abject poverty (sorry PNG but your HDI is in the fucking toilet, another one of Australia's faults) and a war zone or being killed because of their sexuality or political opinion.
If that's not a crime against humanity it should be.
posted by Talez at 4:53 AM on February 18, 2017 [7 favorites]
Everything I've heard out of Naruru and Manus suggests the inland detention centres were comparatively charming and those were horrifying -- hunger strikes, suicides, people sewing their mouths shut as protest, cases of abuse and starvation and denials of medical care or any kind of mental health care whatsoever.
It's so fucked. And Jilder is right. It comes down to sadism. Every time I've had this conversation with MPs and senators and memorably once with a former premier that ended in shrieking on both our parts, it comes down to absolute dehumanising sadism.
The characterisation of what drives these people as "a worry" is part and parcel of that rhetoric. The desperation and that courage and that drive to seek asylum, to seek refuge, the unsafe circumstances of unseaworthy boats and indifferent crews and exploitative smugglers, what it must take to do all that, gets reduced into, direct quote from Laotic, "do you want to save everyone in the world with a worry?"
Calling all that "a worry", calling the idea that perhaps we should not continue to confine and torture people who have done absolutely nothing wrong -- it is not illegal to seek asylum -- as unrealistic as "saving everyone in the world", completely elides everything about these people, where they come from, their circumstances, and the things that are being done to them in the name of the Australian people. It elides their human rights and human suffering for the sake of continuing to treat them as a political abstraction. That is disgusting. It is the same rhetoric that has poisoned the discourse especially since Howard's campaign pack of fucking racist lies and it is disgusting.
It's especially disgusting in the context of this very FPP about a refugee that has been so cruelly mistreated and so desperately in need of aid denied him time and again that he has turned to starvation. For fuck's sake.
posted by E. Whitehall at 6:39 AM on February 18, 2017 [8 favorites]
It's so fucked. And Jilder is right. It comes down to sadism. Every time I've had this conversation with MPs and senators and memorably once with a former premier that ended in shrieking on both our parts, it comes down to absolute dehumanising sadism.
The characterisation of what drives these people as "a worry" is part and parcel of that rhetoric. The desperation and that courage and that drive to seek asylum, to seek refuge, the unsafe circumstances of unseaworthy boats and indifferent crews and exploitative smugglers, what it must take to do all that, gets reduced into, direct quote from Laotic, "do you want to save everyone in the world with a worry?"
Calling all that "a worry", calling the idea that perhaps we should not continue to confine and torture people who have done absolutely nothing wrong -- it is not illegal to seek asylum -- as unrealistic as "saving everyone in the world", completely elides everything about these people, where they come from, their circumstances, and the things that are being done to them in the name of the Australian people. It elides their human rights and human suffering for the sake of continuing to treat them as a political abstraction. That is disgusting. It is the same rhetoric that has poisoned the discourse especially since Howard's campaign pack of fucking racist lies and it is disgusting.
It's especially disgusting in the context of this very FPP about a refugee that has been so cruelly mistreated and so desperately in need of aid denied him time and again that he has turned to starvation. For fuck's sake.
posted by E. Whitehall at 6:39 AM on February 18, 2017 [8 favorites]
Australia is a signatory to the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees
United Nations multilateral treaty
Some relevant pieces:
Signatory countries shall not:
impose penalties of refugees who entered illegally in search of asylum if they present themselves (Article 31)
And:
Refugees shall be treated at least like other non-nationals in relation to:
-movable and immovable property (Article 13)
- the right of association in unions or other associations (Article 15)
- wage-earning employment (Article 17)
self-employment (Article 18)
- practice of the liberal professions (Article 19)
- housing (Article 21)
- education higher than elementary (Article 22)
- the right to free movement and free choice of residence within the country (Article 26)
Australia is not alone among signatories in failing to meet these commitments, but this island prison is surely the West at its worst. The people leading the struggle against this are my heroes. Solidarity, Australian mefites, you can end this.
posted by chapps at 6:55 AM on February 18, 2017 [3 favorites]
United Nations multilateral treaty
Some relevant pieces:
Signatory countries shall not:
impose penalties of refugees who entered illegally in search of asylum if they present themselves (Article 31)
And:
Refugees shall be treated at least like other non-nationals in relation to:
-movable and immovable property (Article 13)
- the right of association in unions or other associations (Article 15)
- wage-earning employment (Article 17)
self-employment (Article 18)
- practice of the liberal professions (Article 19)
- housing (Article 21)
- education higher than elementary (Article 22)
- the right to free movement and free choice of residence within the country (Article 26)
Australia is not alone among signatories in failing to meet these commitments, but this island prison is surely the West at its worst. The people leading the struggle against this are my heroes. Solidarity, Australian mefites, you can end this.
posted by chapps at 6:55 AM on February 18, 2017 [3 favorites]
I don't know what to write. Okay, I do. This is what makes me most ashamed of being Australian- no scratch that, of being human.
These are inhumane. These are cruel. These are crimes against humanity.
Let them into Australia. Let them stay in the community.
posted by daybeforetheday at 10:20 AM on February 19, 2017 [1 favorite]
These are inhumane. These are cruel. These are crimes against humanity.
Let them into Australia. Let them stay in the community.
posted by daybeforetheday at 10:20 AM on February 19, 2017 [1 favorite]
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Fifty years from now, our grandchildren are going to read their history books and wonder why we did it. The only feeling they will feel is being ashamed of us.
posted by Talez at 6:08 PM on February 17, 2017 [20 favorites]