Australian Greens: Music Talks

Although the recent election provides a glimmer of hope for asylum seekers, we must continue pressuring the government to end the punitive approach that has trampled on their rights and damaged their physical and mental health

By Dawn Barrington, a singer-songwriter who campaigns relentlessly for refugee rights and uses her music to encourage others to raise their voices against the shameful way that asylum seekers are treated

[WARNING: This article contains references to violence and suicide]

I am a singer-songwriter/musician and for many years was only remotely aware of a policy legislated in 2013 to send asylum seekers, that arrived by boat, to offshore processing centres. Apart from that l had had very little contact with refugees except with those that I met in my neighbourhood. I knew that Australia did not have a very good reputation when it came to the way that it treated those who arrived on our shores seeking safety but I didn’t realise how bad it was. In 2016 I learned of the incredibly harsh conditions that had been purposely set up on Manus Island and Nauru to make life as difficult as possible for the people sent there. I was absolutely shocked and felt that I had to do something. 

Two trips to Manus gave me an insight into the harsh reality of what we were doing to thousands of refugees. I met many young men with multiple medical ailments that had been ignored: broken bones not reset, heart condition in young men, kidney stones, high blood pressure, diabetes (untreated), pylori bacteria, rashes, lumps, bumps, operations gone wrong, severe mental health problems, the list goes on and on. Most of them were taking sleeping tablets and anti-depressants and a myriad of other medications when the only real cure was to release them and give them proper care and support in Australia. Most of the refugees were healthy before they arrived on Manus and Nauru, strong young men ready to work hard to create a life and future for their families in safety. Six years of hell had made them all incredibly sick mentally and physically.

On my first visit in March 2018 I took a filmmaker. We documented the trip and on my return to Australia I took documentary screenings across WA and then took it to the central coast from Newcastle to Eurobodalla. The audience were shocked. I collected the email addresses of those that came and continued to update them each month on what was happening on Manus and in Port Moresby. The following year after my second visit to Manus (February 2019) I put together an event called “Music Talks” where I sang songs and talked about the refugees and highlighted a few stories (with permission from the men). Every audience I presented the event to were horrified. I took the event from Cairns to Sydney, then Perth to Melbourne and when Covid hit I took it to as many communities as I could across WA. All the while collecting email addresses to keep all those who had attended updated, not expecting it to go for as long as it did.

When the medivac legislation passed, I was on Manus. There were tears of joy, at last these men were going to get the treatment they so needed. While there I collected the medical records of as many of the men as I could. When back in Australia many of us across the country worked really hard with the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC), doctors and lawyers to get the medical records of the men who needed to be medivaced to Australia. It was a mammoth task and by this point the 2019 election was looming and many of them were getting more and more desperate. Many self-harmed and there were many many suicide attempts. It was an incredibly stressful time. We the advocates would send updates about the guys that we were working with to the team via a website. Sometimes I had to send updates of some very traumatic events: one guy cut his head open, another hung himself (his friend sent the photo of the guards cutting him down as evidence), another starved himself till he was force fed. It was horrendous; our then government allowed this to happen.

It took the whole of 2019 to medivac approx. 200 refugees to Australia from Manus and Nauru, only for them to be locked up in hotels and camps for another 2+ years. They didn’t get the medical treatment they needed, and many became sicker, of those many if not most will never recover. Some were released during 2021 but the final group released just before the election were the most damaged because of the extra year in the camps or hotels with no knowing when they would ever get released.

My music talk events have continued and so have my usual monthly emails giving people the shocking updates on what has been happening for those still stuck in PNG and on Nauru and those in detention here in Australia. During that time, I along with many others raised funds to support the men with clothes, phones, credit and whatever else was needed. Once the refugees were released, they were put into a motel for three weeks with a few hundred dollars and left to their own devices. Many people in the community are doing all they can to support them the best they can. All the guys are sick and traumatised but doing the best they can to find work, get their driving licence and start living ‒ even though they have been told they will never settle in Australia. They have to get their Bridging Visas renewed every six months and cannot study, so in effect they are in limbo. They can’t make any plans and still have not seen their family and cannot invite them here or travel to see them.

During this time I learned about refugees who have been detained since they arrived in 2013 for no reason except incompetence in the Department of Home Affairs and sheer spite from the Minister to not sign for their release. In the past few months three of those men have been released but Metallurgical Engineer Ned Emeralds Kelly (aka Taha Zomorodian) remains in detention. His life has been destroyed. He tried to take his life in 2015 by hanging and can no longer speak. He is intelligent, articulate and fights the system. He has won every court hearing ‒ the Judge has ruled that he be released, but in October last year Karen Andrews breached the court order, so he stays detained. His mental health is deteriorating, and I am extremely concerned for his welfare. Please see the letter below that he wrote recently.

We have a new government with new hope, but we still have a very long way to go when it comes to the treatment of refugees. There are approx. 30,000 refugees in Australia on temporary visas, they all arrived by boat and have been told they will never settle. The new government has committed to give approx. 19,000 of them Permanent Residence but we are now in September and still no word.

There are hundreds of refugees still in community detention, many were brought here sick from Nauru and Manus, families living on less than Centrelink, who are not allowed to work. Then there are the thousands of refugees on Bridging Visas which need to be renewed every six months. We need to change the whole narrative around the story of people seeking asylum. Politics needs to be taken out and human rights conventions need to be adhered to.

All those who arrived in 2013 need to be treated the same: we have a moral obligation to give them all Permanent Residence and to give them all the support and the healthcare they need to get their life back to a manageable place. This country has destroyed them and taken ten years from their lives, ten years that they can never get back ‒ it is an outrageous state of affairs. We need to keep putting pressure on this government to end the travesty and to create a new system of processing for those who are seeking asylum ‒ no matter their mode of transport.

Here is the letter to the new Home Affairs Minister from Ned Emeralds Kelly (aka Taha Zomorodian) who remains in detention.

3 August 2022 

Ms Clare O’Neill

Minister for Home Affairs

Parliament House

PO Box 6022

CANBERRA  ACT  2600

Dear Minister,

I write to you as one of the longest-serving hostages in your cage that you have named immigration detention, your cage that you administer and are responsible for. You were elected on the promise that you would not detain people indefinitely or arbitrarily. I have watched with hope as you have released others – today, an Iraqi man, who like me had been detained for a decade.

I want to understand why I have been left behind, and why you are still holding me in detention?

I am a citizen of Iran. I am a qualified Engineer. When I arrived in Australia, I was in the peak of health and only 27 years of age. On 15 July, your incompetent case officer raised a false security flag, interpreting my metallurgy engineering qualification as bomb expert. I wouldn’t be here locked up if such incompetence was not allowed to happen in the first place or if once this falsity was recognised was amended. Instead I would be free like the rest of the people in my boat.

After my capture on 11^th July 2013, I waited two years for the previous Minister to allow me to apply for a Protection visa. By the time I was interviewed, I could not speak, as I had tried to kill myself by hanging, resulting 2 days coma. I had to scribble my answers on a piece of paper.

Later, when I applied for my files under Freedom of Information, I learned that the case officer who interviewed me in February 2016 found me to be a refugee and that I was owed protection. But my case manager at the time provided false information in her numerous emails aimed at delaying this. You can find her emails to ABF removal commanders and see that these are a forgery. This case manager answered the ABF emails saying that she informed me of the protection assessment outcome, but that I still insisted on going home. Through all this time she kept me locked up in a punishment room, didn’t allow me to contact my lawyer, threatening me that I either sign to go home or that I would face 18 years jail time along with 10 AFP charges summons, and she herself was plaintiff against me. No conviction out of her conspiracy for Ned however wasting hundreds dollars of Taxpayers money.

Later on, I complained to Federal Court in 2018 to force Peter Dutton to issue my visa but AGS objected to AFC jurisdictions – as always to delay proceedings – and another case officer who I had never met before decided to reassess and refuse my Protection visa application to stop the course of justice by cheating and misusing their power.

Since that time, I have taken my case to the Federal Circuit Court, and back to the Immigration Assessment Authority, three times. My request has been the same – please interview me if you want to reassess my case. We have a Persian saying, “anyone goes to judge alone he will win definitely”. Give me an opportunity to defend myself as I did in my protection interview. The only person who interviewed me found that I was owed protection. Nobody since has bothered to speak with me. The incompetency of your department is such that I haven’t even had a case manager for the last 3 years, or, if I do then they have not bothered to contact/see me once.

Over the years, I have made many requests to be removed from Australia. I asked to be sent to Iraq. I asked to be put back to sea where I was illegally captured by Australian navy, if that would give me freedom. Last year, I had my lawyers bring a case to force my removal to Nauru or Manus Island. The Federal Court ordered my removal. Then Karen Andrews ordered Serco to wake me up, ordered to pack up my bags, then they took me to the exit gate. However, at the last minute my release was prevented in the name of “Public interest”.  She never answered how me being locked up for a lifetime in detention, instead of leaving Australia, would be in anyone’s interest. Perhaps its in the interest of those who get under table funds from Serco, those who benefit from this wealth-making business. Do you have such interests like her too?! or are you going to let me leave this stolen land that your ancestors earned by butchering the owners.

Even though the Court had ordered it, I could not have my freedom. What is the point of having a justice system in your country when you can be the queen and overrule a Federal Court order? Your lawyers in AGS are delaying the following court cases with the same excuses saying that it’s not in AFC jurisdictions and only minister have the competency to investigate your corrupt department and officers.

Minister, I am not here to beg you to let me out after losing prime and golden age in your cage. I see how your country is willing to release Iranian Islamic regime terrorist from Thailand in exchange for Kylie Gilbert when it’s necessary, you may think of who you can exchange me with. Are any of your covert operatives captured in Iran?!  If you don’t have such an intention, I request to be released in the free ocean where you captured me. I don’t need your visa or anyone else permission to live there.

Minister, I want to tell you – we detainees, we are humans. We are not blind to what is happening to us. We are watching your government and we will continue to speak about the atrocities that we are subject to.

Please put an end to them or I will end myself with all the pressures you’re ordering your staff to put on me. You are refusing health care from me too, no GP since last year. I believe this can be named “modern torture”.

Ned Kelly Emaralds

Header photo: Dawn in a selfie taken by Ned at Perth Detention Centre, 26^th June 2022

_{[Opinions expressed are those of the author and not official policy of Greens WA]}