Reza Berati’s death has become a symbol of the brutality and impunity of the offshore imprisonment of asylum seekers and refugees, argues Janet Parker, on the ninth anniversary of his brutal death on Manus Island.
Reza Berati
Before his nightmare began Helal Uddin — known as “Spicy” — worked as a chef at a holiday inn in Dhaka. He had to leave Bangladesh after being involved in a protest. From Bomana Prison in Papua New Guinea, he tells his story to Green Left.
The anniversary of the death of Kurdish-Iranian asylum seeker Reza Berati was commemorated in Perth, writes Alex Salmon.
Thousands of refugee rights activists, in more than 20 protests around the country, filled streets chanting “Six years too long, bring them here” on July 20.
Four years ago thousands of people lit candles in more than 750 locations across Australia to remember slain 23-year-old Iranian asylum seeker Reza Berati and demand an end to Australia’s detention system.
It was the largest post-Howard government mobilisation for refugee rights to date.
At rallies across the country activists who had been in contact with people in Manus Island detention centre exposed the horrors of that night.
Many people suffering in Manus Island and Nauru detention centres are struggling to find hope that their situation will change. One such person is Behrouz Boochani, a Kurdish journalist who fled Iran and has become well known for his writings about life in the Manus Island detention centre.
As the people on Manus Island prepared to see in the New Year, drunken immigration officials and police beat up asylum seekers who were then taken into police custody and denied food and medical treatment. PNG politician Ronny Knight responded by tweeting “They deserved what they got”.
Barely a week earlier Faysal Ishak Ahmed, a Somali asylum seeker in Manus Island detention centre, died on Christmas Eve after months of being denied adequate medical treatment.
After three years of murders, hunger strikes, mass protests and forcing people to live in some of the worst conditions imaginable, the Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea ruled on April 26 that detaining asylum seekers in the Manus Island Detention Centre is a breach of the country’s constitution.
In the same week, Omid, an Iranian refugee who had been forcibly resettled on Nauru, self-immolated in front of UNHCR inspectors because he could not “take it anymore”.
Carol Hucker worked in Manus Island Detention Centre as a counsellor for International Health and Medical Services (IHMS) and as a case worker for the Salvation Army from June 2013 to July last year.
She has allowed Green Left Weekly to publish her account so that people can become more aware of what is happening on Manus Island. She said: “It is my hope that through this brief account the men on Manus will not be forgotten.”
This is the sixth part of a multi-part series and covers February 2014.
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