All children and their families must be brought to Australia

Nauru hunger strike: 12-year-old boy at imminent risk of dying

Island staff report a looming children’s health crisis ahead of Pacific Islands Forum

Worse and worse!

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Tuesday, August 14, 2018

‘Resignation syndrome’ plagues refugee kids

Refugee and asylum seeker children held in immigration detention are increasingly suffering from a rare syndrome associated with lengthy confinement. Speaking to BuzzFeed Australia, an unnamed health professional recently on Nauru said children with the condition “take to their beds and they stop eating, stop drinking, stop toileting themselves, stop talking … it’s like when you visit a hospice and you watch people who are dying in a hospice”. Child psychologist Louise Newman said resignation syndrome ‒ a condition diagnosed in hundreds of refugee children slated for deportation in Sweden in 2017 ‒ was “a form of escape or dissociation; they go into a state where they look semiconscious”. At least nine legal challenges brought against the federal government by human rights groups this year have resulted in judges ordering immigration authorities to fly seriously ill detention centre detainees to Australia for treatment,

Australian Values?

One of our Batgrans has written this powerful piece (ironically?) titled 'Australian Values'

Can we think for a few minutes about Australia and Australian Values?

Australia likes to think of itself as a caring country. A country which prides itself on being civilised. We talk about fairness and freedom, equality and respect, integrity and trust, the inherent worth and dignity of each individual. We claim to believe in the inalienable rights and freedoms of all peoples, and that we are a just and humane society. We call Australia the land of the fair go. We talk about mateship and think of Sir Edward “Weary” Dunlop standing up, literally, putting his life on the line for the most vulnerable people in his world. We remember Fred Hollows saying that the basic attribute of mankind is to look after each other. Values. Morality. What is right and good. To build up, not knock down. To love the good and love our neighbour, our fellow human beings. The Golden Rule. Do unto others.

Well, ongoing detention, especially of children, is cruel, unjust and unfair. Professor David Isaacs, a Paediatric Specialist from Sydney went to Nauru to see the children and was horrified by the reality of the shocking distress he witnessed there. He says that prolonged detention without knowing what is going to happen to you is a form of torture. The worst thing he saw was the mental health of the children; the effects of trauma and anxiety at an early age will be lifelong. These children will be scarred for life.

The detainees on Nauru live in appalling conditions. Have you been there or spoken with people who have lived there? 

The secrecy surrounding Nauru is frightening but we know enough about the neglect, the abuse, the vulnerability especially of women and children, to say that this is systematic deliberate cruelty which amounts to torture and it is shameful. (This, especially when we are currently reeling from the report from the Royal Commission into Child Abuse.) The inhumanity of what is being done to children is an assault on our human values. When we know the damage that is being done and when we know it is wrong and when it is being done in our name how can we feel anything other than ashamed? We are better than this.

We used to have a Department of Immigration which welcomed people from all over the world. Now we have a Department called Border Force and Homeland Security which contains a unit which deals with immigration. And there is fear and distrust. The context of Nauru, a brutal prison island where people are numbers, is the essence of a shameful inhumanity.

Can I say that I see a sad irony in the fact that the European settlement of what has become Australia was as a penal colony on an isolated island prison and also in the fact that, as is the case with many Australians, all my forebears came from overseas, by boat, to make better and safer lives for themselves and their children.

Helen Thompson Shinkfield

Batman Grandmothers February 2018

Our latest vigil

Here are photos from the vigil on the 8th August. Although it had rained during the day, when we were in Clifton Hill, it ceased and all we had was a part rainbow (see first photo).

The outstanding moment was when a big Linfox tanker gave us a very loud, long toot.

A reminder that our next vigil is in Reservoir 

Thursday 16th August between 4.15-5.15pm in Reservoir, on the grass mound at the corner of High Street and Cheddar Road, (near Reservoir Station)

Another example of the courts finding our government lacking!

As I have already remarked - Thanks goodness for the courts, including the Coroner's Court

Asylum seeker's death ruled preventable

Queensland's coroner has ruled the death of Hamid Khazaei from infection could have been stopped.
http://www.theage.com.au/queensland/queensland-coroner-rules-asylum-seeker-s-death-was-preventable-20180730-p4zue8.html?btis

Back to vigils

Following the meeting last Friday(3rd) and a mid-winter break, we are back doing vigils for the next 5 weeks, until the next meeting in September.

At this stage we shall go to our old stamping grounds, but with a mixing up of the time (because the days are getting longer), and the days, to give people who are unable to attend on a particular day of the week, a change to go to different sites.

The first vigil will be on Wednesday 8th August, as there is a rally on Thursday 9th August from 4-6pm at 79-81 Victoria Pde, Collingwood. The rally has been called by Refugee Action Collective and is at Jetstar corporate office calling on Qantas and all airlines not to deport asylum seekers to danger.

For further information see:    http://rac-vic.org/upcoming-events/

So here are the vigils-

Wednesday 8th August between 4.15-5.15pm in Clifton Hill, at Raines Reserve, on the corner of Queens Parade and Heidelberg Road (near McDonald"s)

Thursday 16th August between 4.15-5.15pm in Reservoir, on the grass mound at the corner of High Street and Cheddar Road, (near Reservoir Station)

Thursday 23rd August between 4.15-5.15 in Clifton Hill, same spot

Wednesday 29th August between 4.15-5.15 at Reservoir

Wednesday 5th September between 4.15-5.15 back in Clifton Hill

Looking forward to seeing you there,

The Two Maries, (co convenors of the Community Engagement Group)

Thank God we have the courts!

Peter Dutton again forced by court to transfer sick child from Nauru to Australia

Case joins more than a dozen failed attempts by immigration minister to block transfer of a child

Helen DavidsonFirst published on Wed 1 Aug 2018 17.12 AEST

The federal court has again forced Peter Dutton to transfer a dangerously sick child from Nauru to Australia for treatment, dismissing arguments from the immigration minister’s representatives that the girl wasn’t seriously ill.

On Thursday the federal court’s Justice Robertson ordered an adolescent girl be transferred to Sydney for urgent medical care, accompanied by a family member.

“The applicant is at serious risk of permanent complications from her current medical situation and [I] find that the applicant appears to be at imminent risk to her health, both in the short term and in the long term,” wrote Robertson in his judgement.

“It follows that I do not accept the submission on behalf of the minister that the applicant has not shown sufficient evidence of the seriousness of her medical condition or sufficient urgency in terms of the treatment for her medical condition.”

The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre confirmed the girl is now in Australia with a family member, and is receiving medical treatment.

The girl’s case joins more than a dozen attempts by the home affairs department to block the medical transfer of a child, attempts that have failed at or shortly prior to federal court action.

“Despite their clear duty of care for people in offshore detention, the Australian government continues to fight in the courts to deny children the medical care they so desperately need, even when their lives are at grave and imminent risk,” the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre’s Natasha Blucher said.

“They are going to extreme lengths to play politics with childrens’ lives and it needs to end immediately.”

In early July, the child self-harmed and was eating and drinking very little, prompting hospitalisation. She was diagnosed with a severe major depressive disorder and pervasive refusal syndrome – a rare but serious child psychiatric disorder, also referred to as resignation syndrome, which has been documented at high rates among asylum seeker children, especially in Sweden.

“A child in this condition, if not treated, will develop severe dehydration, renal failure and malnutrition … Other complications include pneumonia, other infections, pressure sores and contractures,” said Prof Louise Newman in one of the medical reports presented to the court.

“The long-term risks of harm relate to the degree of metabolic compromise and organ failure and the duration of the unresponsive state.”

While the minister’s legal representatives also produced medical evidence from a qualified mental health nurse and a psychiatrist, Robertson ruled it was less persuasive.

He said the evidence in favour of the girl’s transfer was more specific to her case, “more reasoned and given by apparently more senior and experienced practitioners in the relevant field”.

The department’s evidence came from an IHMS psychiatrist who determined “no clear evidence for a depressive illness”, with her symptoms “more likely to be a severe reaction to her situation”, but did agree there was no suitable place in Nauru for treatment if her health deteriorated.

The girl was represented by the National Justice Project, and principal solicitor George Newhouse has accused federal bureaucrats of “interfering in medical decisions”.

“You’re getting recommendations from doctors on Nauru, in the immigration detention in Australia and on Manus Island, that are being ignored and overruled by bureaucrats who are not qualified to make these decisions and are putting people’s lives at risk,” he told Radio National on Tuesday.

“We’ve run cases for about 12 kids who are at imminent risk of harm or even death on Nauru and we’ve had to argue every single time in court that the Australian government has a duty of care to these people. It’s a lie, it’s a myth to suggest that we don’t; but the government persists with it.”