Dear Ms Andrews,

I am a friend of the Centre for a Compassionate Society, which is based in the electorate of Melbourne. I live in the electorate of ***. We have committed to writing a letter to your government every week until all refugees and asylum-seekers who remain on Nauru and in PNG under Operation Sovereign Borders are appropriately re-settled. We also seek humane treatment for refugees and asylum seekers on-shore.

We are copying this letter to the Prime Minister, the Minister for Immigration, the Shadow Minister for Home Affairs and Immigration, and to our local members of parliament.

We welcome the release this week of some refugees from detention, and are so pleased that at last these people can enjoy some freedom. However we are aware that those who remain in detention suffer greatly, not understanding why they continue to be incarcerated when their friends have been released. Many of these people have been hiding the true circumstances of their life – for 8 years – from their families back home so as not to cause their families pain. Here are the words of one of these men: 

“Let us back to our life. We are human. My best age is past in detention. I want to be free, I want to have a relationship, I want to walk alone, I want a puppy. Our family don’t know, we keep covering our pain.”

We urge you to immediately grant freedom and permanent protection to all refugees currently in our detention centres and APODs, and living in the community on TPVs. You have an opportunity, with the stroke of a pen, to improve your government’s legacy by ending an enormous amount of unnecessary suffering, and we beg you to do so. 

Yours sincerely,

*

Send your letter to Ms Karen Andrews: karen.andrews.mp@aph.gov.au (Minister for Home Affairs).
You could cc it to Ms Kristina Keneally: senator.keneally@aph.gov.au (Shadow minister for Immigration and Home affairs)

Send the text to the Prime Minister HERE, and to the immigration minister, Alex Hawke, HERE.