WARNING: This post discusses self-harm and suicide.
Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has actually blamed refugee advocates for encouraging people detained on Nauru to set themselves on fire, following the tragic news that a second refugee has self-immolated in a matter of days.
“I have previously expressed my frustration and anger at advocates and others who are in contact with those in regional processing centres and who are encouraging them to engage in behaviours they believe will pressure the government to bring them to Australia,” he said earlier today.
“These behaviours have intensified in recent times, and as we see, have now turned to extreme acts with terrible consequences.”
He also claimed that refugee advocates were giving asylum seekers “false hope”, which is too fkn disgusting for words:
“They can provide offers of support, that is reasonable. But to provide advice otherwise is very dangerous. We are seeing that play out at the moment. We are not going to allow for it to continue.”
Refugee advocates – as well has pretty much everyone with a brain, heart, and everything else they were after in the Wizard of Oz – have outright rejected those claims.
Appalled at allegations that #refugee advocates coach people to self-harm. I have had to personally stop over 100 refugees taking their life
— Kon Karapanagiotidis (@Kon__K) May 2, 2016
I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that @PeterDutton_MP isn’t the slightest bit interested in saving lives.
— Shelley Stocken (@shellity) May 3, 2016
Dear @PeterDutton_MP If you think people like @pamelacurr have more responsibility for refugee self-harm, you should seek professional help.
— Paul Barratt (@phbarratt) May 3, 2016
.@PeterDutton_MP people don’t need to be ‘encouraged’ or ‘manipulated’ into harming themselves when you put them in your concentration camps
— Aamer Rahman (@aamer_rahman) May 3, 2016
If you could bottle empathy, I’d use it to waterboard Peter Dutton.
— Simon Taylor (@MrSimonTaylor) May 3, 2016
Dutton’s comments come after Hodan Yasi, a 21-year-old Somalian refugee, self-immolated while on Nauru yesterday. She has been transported to a Brisbane hospital and remains in a critical condition.
Her suicide attempt comes just days after 23-year-old Iranian asylum seeker Omid Masoumali died in a Brisbane hospital after self-immolating on Nauru.
Dutton claimed that Omid, like Hodon, had received the utmost medical care both on Nauru and in Brisbane, which is directly at odds with claims that he was forced to wait hours for painkillers, and a full 22 hours before being taken to the Brisbane hospital.
Video footage obtained by The Guardian shows a clearly conscious Omid pacing up and down in Nauru hospital, screaming. A second clip shows Omid standing and screaming, while doctors and nurses struggle to administer painkillers. Onlookers are vomiting.
And yet, somehow, Dutton thinks refugee advocates are encouraging people to put themselves through excruciating pain as some kind of political stunt.
You can watch his address to the media in full below.
Immigration Minister @PeterDutton_MP says advocates’ actions put asylum seekers at risk #auspol https://t.co/QGJ16w23HI
— ABC News (@abcnews) May 3, 2016
Source: The Guardian.
Photo: Twitter / ABC.
If you are feeling distressed in any way, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14.
