Dead Letters from around the world may fall into your lap

One of my Dead Letters on its travels to find my friend Khodayar Amini.

34th letter for Khodayar Amini

Dear Khodayar, it is two years since your death. Over that time I try to keep your memory alive, as do several other people who know you and love you. We keep your memory alive in our minds and by talking to others about you and your story. We keep your memory alive through art that celebrates your message to us all.

Recently I have travelled with my wife to a different country. I mailed you letters from there expressing my love for you. There must be some corner of this earth where someone knows how to get in touch with you.

Our bus was stopped by soldiers with guns. Just a routine check, nothing to be concerned about, as long as our papers are in order. We handed over our passports and answered their questions. Then they let us continue on our way. They decided to let us pass that day. I thought of you often in the different cities that we visited. I am sorry that you were trapped, and that there was no way out from suffering for you except death. The world is so big and can be so beautiful but our cages stopped you finding the things that you needed to nourish you and keep you alive and safe. We built these cages, we denied you the things we already have and that you sorely needed. Love Stephen

Australia imprisons refugees who come here, whether they are children or adults. To do this a vast immigration gulag has been constructed over many decades. This gulag stretches from Yongah Hill prison in Western Australia to the prison on Nauru; a distance of 6,305 km. And it stretches from the MITA prison in Victoria to the immigration prison on Christmas Island, which is a distance of 4,943 km. This gulag is constructed of razor wire and concrete, but more importantly it is constructed in all our minds with an ideology that denies the humanity of those we imprison.

These people are imprisoned with no legal process – there is no charge against them, no trial and no conviction against them. There is no law that they have violated. They are innocent. And yet there is no limit to how long they can be locked away. It might be two years, it might be five years, or for some it may be eight years. The detention is indefinite and arbitrary.

Clause 39 of the Magna Carta says “No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land.” This fundamental human rights protection entered into force 800 years ago and since then many other treaties and conventions have also become law to protect the rights of human beings. These include the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1976), the United Nations Convention Against Torture (1985) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1990). Australia is subject to all of these conventions and yet routinely violates them with its treatment of the refugees within the immigration gulag.

In the immigration gulag the prisoners are denied their freedom, they are referred to by numbers not their names, they are denied adequate health care, they are denied clean food and water, they are denied education, they are routinely denied access to lawyers, they are denied work rights and their ability to practice their religion is severely curtailed. The immigration gulag was explicitly set up to make these people suffer – to subject them to “harsh” treatment. The result of this is an epidemic of mental illness amongst the tens of thousands of people who have been locked away in the gulag. Added to this are the beatings, the sexual assaults and rapes, the gunshot and machete wounds and the murders that have taken place in the immigration gulag. Conditions in the immigration gulag are worse than in the prison system in which Australia locks up criminals.

This violence directed against refugees by Australia is rooted in the racist ideologies of invasion and occupation that were, and continue to be used against the first nations of Australia. The denial of the humanity of the racialised other, the false accusations against those persecuted by the state and the farcical claims that the state is acting in the interests of those it starves and harms is the same in both cases. The collective punishment is the same. The public invisibility of the multitudinous state crimes and petty cruelties is the same. And the crushing weight of a capricious and all powerful bureaucracy used against the oppressed is the same.

For the second anniversary of Khodayar Amini's death, I took flowers to his grave.