Message from the asylum seekers in Scherger detention center who have been on a Hunger strike

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 Merit 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 LAND” 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 the detention 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
Australian 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 fare. We are happy to negotiate, but our
freedom is not negotiable.

Many thanks for your attention.

Signatures of Hunger Strikers

Mass hunger strike as protests spread to Scherger Dentention Centre