dreadedloreenkid:

atalasexp:

A genuinely frightening thing about watching the US is realizing how much of what they’re protesting has been normalized at home.

Australia has had a policy of mandatory detention of asylum seekers for over twenty years.

For five years, the detention centers
have been off-shore in foreign nations. The conditions are beyond
horrible. Medical care is almost nonexistent; the tents are moldy; the
guards are violent. Australian journalists are not allowed in the centres. The UN, Amnesty International and countless other groups have condemned the human rights abuses in these camps.

In those five years, twelve men have died.

Every single death could have been prevented with adequate medical care. Multiple men set themselves on fire as protest. Some of those men died, because the Australian government waited up to three days to allow transfer to an Australian hospital. Suicide attempts are rampant. The youngest refugee to attempt suicide was six years old.

I repeat: a six year old girl tried to hang herself, because she saw no other way out.

What we are doing is barbaric. It’s inhumane. And we cannot stop until the system is changed. For those of us who are Australian, we do not have the luxury of silence. If we do not fight against this in every way we can, we are complicit in these crimes.

#CloseTheCamps #BringThemHere

You don’t get to be angry at Donald Trump and US politics if you aren’t angry at and engaged with Australian politics.