Asylum Seekers in Scherger Detention Centre

MEDIA STATEMENT from Asylum Seekers in Scherger Detention Centre

Asylum Seekers in Scherger Detention Centre (North Queensland, Australia), started a hunger strike at 10 AM Thursday 21.07.2011.

The number of detainees who participated was about 45 to begin with, and towards the end of the day the number reached 65 individuals. At a current count, by now (4:22pm EST 22.07.2011) there are 67 individuals who are on hunger strike (no food and no liquids).

Almost all Hunger Strikers are originally from Afghanistan and the majority of them are Hazara.

The following press release has been approved by an absolute majority.

MEDIA STATEMENT from Asylum Seekers in Scherger Detention Centre

In the Name of Merciful God

This HUNGER STRIKE is a response to the continued pressure exercised by the Australian Immigration Department on us.

The participants in this hunger strike have been denied protection and robbed of their liberty for periods of time extending over a year, even up to 20 months.

This punitive action and arbitrary jailing has destroyed our physical and mental health.

Our families - including our children - living outside detention and overseas have suffered additionally from the terror of Taliban, and the tyrannies of other dictators and regimes.

Daily sadness and additional trauma that we are exposed to remains unknown to certain officers and Immigration Merits Review members. These members are neglecting our claims, the reasons for our claims, the arguments that we have supplied, and the documents available to them, they have consequently failed to reach a comprehensive human and just decision.

We are locked in "NO MAN’S LAD" inside a military base where average people and the media have no access to us.

Our friends and relatives cannot reach us and we have to accept the blame of officials, and the suggestion that "you are not looking after your case!"

Our treatment in this way is very hideous and painful. They are melting us in a bureaucratic oven, and pushing us through cracks in the law, all the while, money-makers are making their money and we have to suffer indefinitely and infinite trauma.

We have to suffer for such a long time, because you want to send messages to the opportunistic smugglers. You have punished us more than enough and the smugglers will have received your messages. Be happy!

SUGGESTION:
1. All rejected cases have to be reviewed by positive and reputable IMR members within a month.
2. Well-known IMR members who have prolonged the detention of Asylum Seekers with their arbitrary and unjust decisions, have to step aside until the completion of this process.
3. All detainees who have been in detention for more than three months and have completed health checks should be released under the "Community Detention Program".
4. Media must be permitted to see and report our condition to the people of Australia and the world.
Finally we are asking that all freedom-loving people of Australia and International Organisations would support our cause and our struggle for justice. Be assured we are peace loving people and we do respect the traditional owners of the land in Australia, and all peoples of Australia and their magnificent cultures.

We are Law abiding people and we have been calm and quiet for many months. We have reached the end of our resilience and we cannot cope anymore.

This Hunger Strike action we are undertaking is fully peaceful and our demands are all just and fair. We are happy to negotiate, but our freedom is not negotiable.

Many thanks for your attention.

Signatures of Hunger Strikers -----

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