In Wellington that is, during the Federation of Catholic Bishops Conference of Oceania (FCBCO) meeting.

Catholic Archbishop of Wellington Paul Martin and the Wellington Archdiocese hosted the three-day meeting.

In recent decades migration has become the key to the vast and diverse Oceania region's economy and sustainability.

"We heard the call of the vulnerable in our region... in search of work, or to escape the impacts of domestic challenges such as rising sea levels" the FCBCO says.

"How we provide pastoral care for those affected peoples emerged as a core theme in our prayer and reflection, and we will continue to dialogue as we move forward."

Pope agrees

Pope Francis is well-known for speaking out for migrants and refugees.

The Vatican has released an advance message from Francis before September's 110th World Day of Migrants and Refugees.

In it, the Pope reminds us "it is possible to see in the migrants of our time, as in those of every age, a living image of God's people on their way to the eternal homeland".

The images of migrants and the biblical exodus share several similarities, he notes.

Like the people of Israel in the time of Moses, migrants often flee from oppression, abuse, insecurity, discrimination and lack of opportunities for development.

Migrants encounter many obstacles in their path - they are tried by thirst and hunger, they are exhausted by toil and disease, they are tempted by despair the Pope says.

"Emphasing the synodal dimension allows the Church to rediscover its itinerant nature, as the People of God journeying through history on pilgrimage, "migrating", we could say, toward the Kingdom of Heaven.

Yet the fundamental reality of the Exodus, of every exodus, is that God precedes and accompanies his people and all his children in every time and place, Francis says.

Asylum seekers back on Nauru

Asylum seekers in the Pacific and Oceania region risk much for little return.

Australian officials report that the number of asylum seekers on Nauru has topped 100, after two groups of 37 people were sent to join those already on the Pacific Island. All are adults, just one is female.

Australia's policy of deterrence against asylum seekers' boats is under strain, with three boats of migrants arriving in a single week in May.

These "unauthorised maritime arrivals" are never allowed to settle in Australia, even if they are deemed to be owed protection under refugee conventions.

Source

• The Guardian
• Holy See Press Office
• Catholic Culture
• Catholic News Agency
• Supplied - Catholic Diocese of Broken Bay

The Asylum Seekers Support Trust (ASST), a charity relying on donations, provides assistance to approximately 400 asylum seekers across the country.

These individuals, including those previously detained in immigration facilities, are referred to ASST by Immigration New Zealand.

However, the government agency does not provide funding for their care, leaving the charity with limited resources to support the growing number of clients.

In May alone, ASST had 92 new clients who received nothing unless it was through the charity.

The wait time for asylum seekers to become refugees in Aotearoa is prolonged, averaging around 500 days.

Shockingly, some individuals have had to wait for five or six years for legal refugee recognition.

ASST provides accommodation at its Auckland hostel, food boxes and a weekly stipend of $40 to asylum seekers who are ineligible for social housing and lack a stable income.

Social workers are employed to assist clients with the visa process.

While Immigration New Zealand claims that asylum seekers can apply for work visas and receive a living allowance, the reality is different.

Out of the 16 asylum seekers residing at the Auckland hostel, nine are without visas and do not receive immigration allowances.

This dire situation has left many asylum seekers traumatised, confined to the hostel with no sense of purpose.

ASST's general manager described it as a broken system that fails to support those in need adequately.

A recent University of Auckland study highlighted the inequality of services available to different refugee subgroups and emphasised the importance of supporting asylum seekers during the legal review process.

Immigration New Zealand acknowledges that there is no formal referral process to ASST and states that they are not currently funded to provide financial support to the charity.

However, the government is exploring options to improve assistance for asylum seekers and convention refugees.

As asylum seekers continue to face prolonged waiting periods, insufficient financial resources and uncertain living conditions, the immediate need for assistance remains pressing.

Source

• Stuff

The trial could become a landmark case for deciding if granting church asylum amounts to the offense of "aiding and abetting illegal residents," as interpreted by German state prosecutors.

Mother Mechthild Thurmer granted refuge to female asylum-seekers in her Bavarian monastery more than 30 times.

The main Court hearing was canceled in mid-July because the judge wanted to wait for further charges to be made against her.

"I acted out of Christian spirit," the Benedictine abbess says."To give concrete help to a person in need can't be a crime."

Until now, Bavarian authorities have generally dropped proceedings against people granting church asylum and imposed no penalties.

Occasionally they offered to close cases in exchange for a fine, although this did not amount to an acquittal.

Franz Bethauser, who is representing Mechthild, wants the justice system to clarify the issue thereby giving people legal certainty.

The Court hearing will not be just about Mechthild. Rather, it is also about whether an agreement between the churches and the government on church asylum made in 2015 still stands.

Under that agreement, authorities tolerate asylum while the asylum-seeker's individual application is examined. The only proviso is, that the asylum seeker is not hidden.

In 2018 the Freising district court ruled that as long as the state does not enforce an asylum-seeker's obligation to leave the country, church asylum cannot be punishable.

Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann urged the police and immigration authorities to stick to this line and not to deport refugees directly from church care.

At present, asylum-seekers and their hosts have no legal claim, nor have they any final security in the matter.

Source

• Catholic Philly
• Image: Web24 News

Under the title "The Women The Vatican Couldn't Silence," she spoke of asylum seekers, the role of women in the church and cowardly bishops.

Beginning with the issue of asylum seekers, but without specifically referring to protests against accommodating asylum seekers in several Irish towns, McAleese spoke of asylum seekers' need to be made welcome in Ireland.

They have had to leave their homes and "suddenly they have nowhere, and nothing. And now they rely on the kindness of strangers."

"My God tells me I have to be the stranger who is kind . . . it bothers me greatly finding that (in) a country that I'm so proud of, that sometimes people are not experiencing the kindness that I know is the ethic of our country and our people."

"We relied on it (kindness) ourselves so often when we went as emigrants to other countries, poor, our two hands the one length, looking for opportunity."

The role of women in the church also bothers McAleese.

Women are "deliberately made invisible," she said.

"Deliberately meant to stay invisible, and structurally the architecture of the church is designed to create and maintain the invisibility and powerlessness of women."

As an example, McAleese drew upon Pope John Paul's description of sex in marriage from his book Love and Responsibility.

In the book he says "It is the very nature of the act that the man plays the active role and takes the initiative while the woman is a comparatively passive partner whose function it is to accept and experience.

"For the purpose of the sexual act it is enough for her to be passive and unresisting, so much so that it can even take place without her volition while she is in a state where she has no awareness at all of what is happening - for instance when she is asleep or unconscious."

"That is how we are treated in the church," McAleese said.

She recalled how the late moral theologian Fr Seán Fagan "called Pope John Paul out on that and said the obvious. He asked a question.

Fagan said: ‘Can this really be Catholic Church teaching? It sounds like rape.' What happened? Pope John Paul become a saint. Seán Fagan becomes silenced. That's our church."

McAleese also spoke of the ban on her taking part in a conference on women at the Vatican last year, noting she was never told why she was banned, even though she asked for an explanation.

The ban puzzled her as "it was known that the pope was coming to Ireland last year and Cardinal Farrell [who banned her from speaking at the conference] ... probably did know that I had been the president of Ireland for 14 years."

She said it's important to strip away "the deference, the false deference, and insist on being listened to on equal terms."

In her view, "the vast majority of bishops worldwide are cowardly. They are cowed, in their turn, [by] the deference they offer to their superior and the overreach of obedience to the magisterium [the Catholic Church's teaching authority]."

Source

• Irish Times
• Image: Irish Times

So far I have spoken in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Hobart and Launceston, Adelaide, Perth and Benalla in North East Victoria.

The idea for the forums came ahead of a visit to Papua New Guinea (including Manus Island), that I made in August, following my retirement from the Federal Parliament.

I wanted to get the message across to Australians and our government that even with the closure of the detention centre on Manus Island, the next step must be taken for those who remain in PNG as asylum seekers.

We must continue to urge the Australian Government to resettle those eligible asylum seekers in New Zealand.

The existing situation continues to cost Australians too much both financially and in terms of our reputation in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific.

The overwhelming response from the PNG people has been that it is time to end detention and they are proud and supportive of the action taken by their Prime Minister, James Marape, to initiate the termination of services provided to asylum seekers detained on Manus Island.

During my two terms as Member for Indi between 2013 and 2019, eight branches of Rural Australians for Refugees (RAR) in the electorate and the then National President, Marie Sellstrom, ensured I was informed of the status of those seeking asylum in Australia but placed in offshore detention in PNG and Nauru and in onshore detention in all Australian states.

Working with Rural Australians for Refugees provided the opportunity to speak directly to Australians about respect, justice and compassion for those seeking asylum and the need to find a solution to the plight of people "dumped" in PNG.

It is also important to respect the rights of PNG to manage its own affairs in the best interests of the country and its people.

I want to do more than speak to rural and regional Australians about the plight of asylum seekers.

I want everyone I speak with to take action and write to their local MP and State senators in the Federal Parliament. By taking this kind of action throughout our communities, there is a greater chance the Government will listen and respond.

Many within the faith communities I have spoken to in the past month support this approach. The Josephites, Brigidines, Baptists, Uniting Church and Anglicans have all provided venues for the speaking tour we have organised.

I thank them and my friends within RAR for their help.

Now we are asking all faith communities to support our request that the Australian Government end the punishment of people seeking asylum. Please write to the Australian Government and Parliamentarians, asking them to work cooperatively with the New Zealand and PNG Governments to find a resolution to the unacceptable quarantining of human beings on the islands of PNG and Nauru.

Pope Francis has said, "Migrants, refugees, displaced persons and victims of trafficking have become emblems of exclusion". It is shameful the Australian Government and the country's major political parties have taken this approach.

On September 30, 2019, Fr Giorgio Licini, General Secretary of the Catholic Bishops Conference of PNG and the Solomon Islands wrote:

"Nauru and Papua New Guinea fall within the majority of countries that, in spite of all the goodwill, still can't ensure proper care for their citizens.

"These countries have few doctors, scarcity of medicines, lack of equipment and lack of facilities.

"Thousands of people die in PNG every year from curable diseases despite everybody's efforts. Trying to push the idea that asylum seekers and refugees in PNG have proper health care is laughable and irritating."

Together with Rural Australians for Refugees, I ask all those who believe in social justice and human rights, especially the Bishops of New Zealand, to support Fr Licini and urge the Governments of New Zealand, PNG and Australia to work together to find a resolution to this issue seeking a fair and just process for people seeking asylum in the Asia Pacific Region.

• Cathy McGowan AO, Former Australian Independent Federal Member for Indi
• Image: Planning Institute Australia

So, for more than a month, hundreds of pastors and volunteers from across the Netherlands conducted a non-stop 800-hour church service in support of an Armenian family whose asylum claim has been rejected. Continue reading

Plea to save families on Nauru: ‘This is an emergency for those children' Continue reading

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions says US asylum laws cannot be used to remedy "all misfortune."

This is even in cases where a person may be threatened with violence in another country or "for any number of reasons relating to her social, economic, family or other personal circumstances."

The director of the National Advocacy Center of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, Lawrence E. Couch, spoke out against the law.

He says Sessions' decision is "inherently hostile and cruel."

"No longer will the United States of America welcome and protect our vulnerable and abused brothers and sisters who are experiencing persecution and brutality."

In his opinion, Americans are both hopeful and welcoming, and the government is out of sync with Americans' values.

"The soul of our nation is being tested," he says.

It appears Sessions has been considering changing the law for some time.

He claimed last year that the asylum system was being abused by people seeking to move to the United States.

This week he released a 31-page ruling reneging on a decision made in 2016 granting asylum to a woman who had been "emotionally, physically and sexually" abused by her husband in El Salvador.

He ruled against her and sent the case back to an immigration judge to order her deportation.

His decisions changing the grounds for granting asylum "strips life-saving protection [from the woman and others] who lack adequate protection and will now face return to the extreme dangers of domestic violence in their home country," Ashley Feasley says.

Feasley, who is the director of policy at the US Conference of Catholic Bishops' Migrant and Refugee Services, added:

"Similarly, this decision could close the door on those fleeing gang violence in their home country from escaping persecution ... [and] overrides extensive prior legal precedent."

The new ruling could affect people coming from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, where gang violence, drug trafficking and other social ailments are rife. People seek asylum because authorities cannot control the violence or guarantee safety.

Just because a country is having difficulty in policing crimes such as domestic or gang violence, or that some populations are more likely to be victims of crime, "cannot itself establish an asylum claim," Sessions says.

Jeanne Atkinson, executive director of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network Inc., said Sessions' ruling "sets a dangerous precedent for other victims of violence, including those who are targeted for their religious beliefs."

Asylum law "has long recognised that persecution can occur at the hands of entities that a national government is unable or unwilling to control."

Atkinson says these groups include terrorist organisations like the Islamic State, al-Qaida and the Tamil Tigers.

Source

• Crux Now
• Catholic News Agency
• Image: CNN.com

The death of Marco Antonio Muñoz has not been publicly disclosed by the Department of Homeland Security, and it did not appear in any local news accounts.

But, according to a copy of a sheriff's department report obtained by The Washington Post, Muñoz was found on the floor of his cell on 13 May.

Muñoz's death occurred not long after the Trump administration began implementing its ­"zero-tolerance" crackdown on illegal migration.

The chairman of the US bishops' Committee on Migration on June 1 criticised the Trump administration for "forcibly separating children from their mothers and fathers" at the US-Mexico border.

Such a policy "is ineffective to the goals of deterrence and safety, and contrary to our Catholic values," said Bishop Joe S. Vasquez of Austin, Texas.

"Family unity is a cornerstone of our American immigration system and a foundational element of Catholic teaching".

Bishop Daniel Flores issued a statement three days ago in which he said while a nation has a right to secure its sovereign border, it does not mean that it may use any means available to deter immigrants who seek to ask for asylum.

Flores is the Bishop of Brownsville, which is on the border between Texas and Mexico.

"This nation, for the sake of its soul, must learn to weep with these children, and all the children who are being instrumentalised and commodified in our midst", Flores said.

He called the Catholics of Brownsville and all people of good will to write to the President, the Attorney General and members of Congress to insist that this manner of enforcement comes to an end.

Source

• washingtonpost.com
• catholicphilly.com
• Supplied: Father Tony O'Connor
• Image: edition.cnn.com

According to data prepared by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), from October 2017 to April 2018 more than 700 children were taken from adults claiming to be their parents.

This includes more than 100 children under the age of 4.

The ORR is a division of the Department of Health and Human Services that takes custody of children removed from migrant parents.

Brownsville is a Texas town on the Mexico-United State border. This is the town in which New Zealand priest Fr. Tony O'Connor works. He has recently contributed some opinion pieces to CathNewsNZ Asia and Pacific.

Brownsville has become the centre of media attention in recent weeks.

Beginning late April, the magistrates' courts there suddenly turned into "zero tolerance" factories for criminalising migrants.

It used to be rare to charge migrants seeking asylum with crimes. If they did so, they were put into detention with their children while they pursued their claims.

Or they were released with supervision — along with their children.

The best interests of the children were considered paramount, and those interests included keeping families together.

But now, not only are parents finding themselves charged in federal courts with the crime of "illegal entry," the government is breaking up families, sending children to detention centres or to foster homes.

The children can often end up hundreds of kilometres away from their mothers and fathers.

One of the few places immigrants can gather peacefully and without danger is churches.

Many of those churches are Catholic.

Still, in some ways, the US bishops are stuck in the middle.

Many of their white parishioners voted for Trump and his anti-immigrant platform, while Pope Francis has stood for the opposite when it comes to immigration issues.

While they stand together, bishops retain their individuality.

They differ on strategies, approaches and how much of a priority they put on the issue of immigration.

Source

• theintercept.com
• Image: theintercept.com

In 1992 we introduced a system of indefinite mandatory detention for asylum seekers who arrive by boat.

Since that time, we have accepted the idea that certain categories of refugees and asylum seekers can be imprisoned indefinitely; that those who are intercepted by our navy should be forcibly returned to the point of departure; that those who haven't been able to be forcibly returned should be imprisoned indefinitely on remote Pacific Islands; and that those marooned on these island camps should never be allowed to settle in Australia even after several years.

How then has this come to pass? There are two main ways of explaining this.

The first is what can be called analytical narrative: the creation of an historical account that shows the circumstances in which the decisions were made and how one thing led to another.

I have tried my hand at several of these.

The second way is to look at more general lines of explanation. I want to suggest five possibilities.

These general lines of explanation are not alternatives to each other but complementary. Nor do they constitute an alternative to explanation by way of analytical narrative.

Rather, they attempt to illuminate some of the general reasons the story took the shape it did.

Immigration absolutism
It is very common to explain the creation of Australia's uniquely harsh anti-asylum seeker system of border control as a partially disguised return of the old racism of the White Australia Policy.

This now seems to me mistaken.

Even though there have been occasional political hiccups - I think of Blainey in 1984, Howard in 1988, Hanson 1.0 in 1996 and Hanson 2.0 in 2016 - one of the more remarkable achievements of Australian history has been the seamless transformation of white Australia to a multiracial and multicultural society since the early 1970s. Continue reading

• Robert Manne is Emeritus Professor and Vice-Chancellor's Fellow at La Trobe University.

"It is time to find an alternative and conscionable solution, including accepting New Zealand's offer of resettlement and bringing the remaining detainees on Manus Island to Australia," said Bishop Vincent Long Van Nguyen.

A number of Catholic agencies in Australia have also voiced concern in a joint statement.

They are urging all Australians to express their concern for the circumstances of the men on Manus Island by contacting their local federal MP to demand an immediate change "to this expensive, unworkable and unprincipled policy."

The Statement makes the following points:

• The men on Manus Island have the right to food, water and shelter; to freedom and liberty; to be free from inhumane and degrading treatment, and to seek and receive protection.
• The Australian Government is legally and morally responsible for the lives of these men who have been arbitrarily and indefinitely held in limbo for more than four years.
• The only humane resolution to the current impasse is for the Australian Government to bring every refugee and person seeking asylum on Manus Island to Australia where they can be permanently resettled or have their claims processed in safety and with dignity.
• Offshore processing for the purposes of deterrence, whether in PNG, Nauru or anywhere else, is inhumane and unsustainable, and must cease to be a part of any Australian policy.

The Catholic agencies that signed the statement are:

Catholic Alliance for People Seeking Asylum (CAPSA), Catholic Social Services Australia, Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) Australia, and Jesuit Social Services (JSS).

Source

• Diocese of Parramatta
• Australian Jesuits
• Image: The New Daily

She says there is no help available for people suffering from mental illness.

Last week an apparent suicide of a Tamil detainee was closely followed by that of an Iranian refugee, both of whom were living in the East Lorengau Transit Centre on Manus.

Keogh said she spent a day trying to get treatment for another Sri Lankan refugee who was having a psychotic episode.

The situation was dire. "I think it's high level. If the people at the hospital are saying there are three cases of psychosis at the moment - well, with psychosis, you don't know what they're going to do next," she said.

"If people can run naked through the town and no-one's allowed to apprehend them or do anything with them, the police could put them in the lock-up which would only add to their trauma. Any of those three could die imminently."

Keogh told RNZ that when they asked the people at the Transit Centre for help they said "Look, we're sorry but there is no psychiatric help at that hospital, there's nowhere on this island, there's nowhere you can take him, we can't do anything."

Australian and PNG authorities are moving ahead with plans to close the Manus Island detention centre by October 31.

The refugees inside have been told to move to alternative accommodation, mainly the transit centre, so the detention centre can be shut down.

"When they were in the camp [detention centre] anyone in a psychiatric state had people monitoring them and watching them the whole time. Here [at Lorengau] they don't have it," said Keogh.

Source

• RNZ
• Sunshine Coast Daily
• ABC News
• Image: Canberra Times

The Australian-run facility is due to close by the end of October but the PNG government is worried it will be left to care for about 800 men still there.

The Kurdish journalist and detainee Behrouz Boochani said about 60 men were transferred to Port Moresby earlier this month and that another 30 would be moved today. Continue reading

Bakatete Koririntetaake, who comes from Christmas Island and lived in Fiji for some time, said the group had attended an ordination in Kiribati and upon returning, they decided to visit Peniata.

"We are enjoying Fiji, we have witnessed the cultural practices by villagers in Serua," he said.

Peniata said he was pleased to have a few people from his homeland in Fiji with him for a short while.

"It's been a long time since I've last seen them. They are accompanying me to the villages in Serua for church visits," he said.

Christmas Island is an Australian external territory located in the Indian Ocean.

Catholics on Christmas Island are pastorally cared for by the Archdiocese of Perth although they are not within its jurisdiction. In 2014 they celebrated their 25th anniversary.

The World Fact Book puts the population at just over 2000 residents. This does not include the highly variable population at the Immigration Detention Centre.

The majority of the residents live in settlements on the northern tip of the island. The main settlement is Flying Fish Cove.

There is no indigenous population. Around two-thirds of the island's population are Malaysian Chinese, with significant numbers of Malays and European Australians as well as smaller numbers of Malaysian Indians and Eurasians.

Buddhism is the primary religion, practised by three-quarters of the population. The Christians make up about 19% (397 people) of the population. Of that number about 18% are Catholics.

A school managed by the Catholic Education Office of Western Australia was opened in 2014 for asylum seeker children held in detention.

• Fiji Times
• Catholic Communications Sydney
• Facebook
• Wikipedia
• World Fact Book
• Population of the World
• Image: Facebook

A group of detainees has asked the New Zealand prime minister Bill English for asylum as they say PNG is incapable of resettling them when the detention centre closes. Read more

Refugees and detainees were told to consider their options, but not to leave it too late to make a decision.

"No one will be resettled in Australia," an official said.

In an announcement at the centre on Tuesday detainees were told that one of its four compounds known as Foxtrot would be closed on 30 June.

An accommodation block within Foxtrot, N Block, is to be emptied by 28 May.

"Once closed electricity will be turned off and your belongings will be relocated. The area will be locked and no one will be permitted to enter," a PNG official said.

The official said other compounds would be closed and demolished "in the coming months," and that "better information about the next phase of Manus Regional Processing Centre demolition will be provided in due course".

Refugees can move to accommodation in the PNG community or go to the Transit Centre in nearby Lorengau.

Those eligible for resettlement to the United States, will be settled in

Foxtrot's non-refugees (detainees whose claims for asylum have been rejected) can apply for voluntary repatriation or temporarily move to another compound.

Non refugees have been given a deadline of 31 August to apply for voluntary repatriation with Australian assistance.

Previous detainees to accept repatriation are reported to have been offered $US25,000.

Those who did not apply were warned they would be removed from PNG by the government of Papua New Guinea "without any reintegration assistance".

"Non refugees have no other options,""the official said, although one such asylum seeker, Azzam el Sheikh, has had his deportation stopped by a PNG court while his refugee determination process is reviewed.

Source

• channelnewsasia.com
• radionnz.co.nz
• Image: abc.net.au

Shaun Cornelius is a Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors without Borders Logistician Manager on the SOS Méditerranée asylum seekers rescue boat Aquarius in the Mediterranean.

Shaun, who comes from Wellington, is on his fourth assignment with MSF. He previously was in Ethiopia, South Sudan and on the Aquarius in 2016.

SOS Méditerranée is a European NGO that rescues asylum seekers in distress in the Mediterranean. Since launching its rescue operation in February 2016 it has rescued more than 11,000 asylum seekers.

"I'm honoured to participate to the humanitarian action achieved by the SOS Méditerranée - Aquarius ship," Shaun said.

"MSF's primary role is to look after people once they are on board and this involves getting them into dry clothing, showering to remove gasoline, providing food, water, toilets and shelter, and of course medical treatment."

"As a logistician, I keep all the MSF equipment and structures on board in good working condition. This includes the shelter structures, toilets, showers and plumbing, drinking water filters, radios, computers and medical equipment."

"I am also responsible for the stocks of emergency kits and food we provide to our passengers. I carry out the re-order of supplies' and I also liaise with the ship's crew and engineers if repairs or modifications are needed to the ship's equipment."

The Félix Houphouët-Boigny Peace Prize was created in 1989 to honor individuals or public and private bodies or institutions that have made a significant contribution to promoting, seeking, safeguarding or maintaining peace in conformity with the United Nations' Charter and the Constitution of UNESCO.

Past laureates of the Prize have included personalities such as French President François Hollande, Nelson Mandela and Frederik W. De Klerk; Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat; King Juan Carlos of Spain and former U.S.A. President, Jimmy Carter.

Read Shaun' story

• Part 1
• Part 2

Source

• Supplied: msf.org.au
• en.unesco.org
• Image: msf.org.au

There were cockroaches crawling and biting me, I thought to myself this is similar to a police station in Afghanistan!"

It's just after midnight at Auckland International Airport when Khalid, who we agreed not to name to protect his identity, arrived in late August 2012.

He'd disposed of his passport during the final transit before reaching Auckland. Continue reading

Amnesty International is calling on New Zealand to take a lead in exerting international pressure on Australia over its detention centre on Nauru.

Amnesty has condemned Australia's offshore detention regime on Nauru as an "open-air prison" and akin to "torture".

New Zealand has offered to take 150 of the asylum seekers, but Australia says it must deal directly with Nauru, and the offer is stalled.

Amnesty's senior crisis director Anna Neistat said New Zealand had a crucial role as one of Australia's key partners.

"International pressure should start from the region where New Zealand is undoubtedly the most serious player who could challenge Australia's policy and, to a certain extent, show to Australia that things can be done differently."

Amnesty says refugees and and asylum seekers are attacked with impunity, healthcare is inadequate or non-existent, and suicide attempts, including among children, are common.

Neistat, who interviewed dozens of the 410 detainees in July, says asylum seekers are undergoing extreme suffering which amounts to torture.

On her visit to Nauru she found:

• A seven-month pregnant Iranian refugee attempted to hang herself,
• Suicide attempts by children were commonplace, including by a 13-year-old boy who had attempted to kill himself multiple times - with a knife, with petrol and by drowning himself in the ocean -
• A 15-year-old girl who had tried to kill herself twice, saying "I'm tired of my life".
• A refugee family who moved into the Nauruan community were repeatedly attacked in their home and their property destroyed.
• Guards in the processing centre have assaulted, abused and threatened refugee children.
• A young girl who was prescribed adult antidepressive medication that has a "black box warning" against its use by children, because it causes suicidal thinking.
• Staff on the island reporting that people are discharged from hospital even when they are "still sick, sometimes half-conscious

Source

• radionz.co.nz
• nzherald.co.nz
• theguardian.com
• Image: thebloggersden.com