Sisters from Catholic religious orders across Australia have signed a statement calling on Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to issue an “amnesty” for asylum seekers held on Manus Island.
Sr Monica Cavanagh, congregational leader of the Sisters of St Joseph, said celebrations in Sydney this week surrounding the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart by St Mary Mackillop and Fr Julian Tenison Woods had motivated Catholic Orders to do what St Mary would have done, by “asking that the people seeking asylum on Manus Island and Nauru, be brought here to Australia”.
“In the context of the imminent closure of the Manus camp – announced today by the PNG and Australian Governments – the men on Manus must be granted this amnesty and brought to Australia, not to some other temporary or unsafe context”, she said in a statement issued on 17th August.
Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister, Peter O’Neill, and Australian Immigration Minister Peter Dutton both confirmed the regional asylum-seeker processing centre on Manus Island will be closed following a meeting in Port Moresby on Wednesday. No date for the closure was given and Mr Dutton said in a statement that the Australian Government’s position, confirmed with PNG, “is that no one from Manus Island Regional Processing Centre will ever be settled in Australia”.
The news comes after PNG’s Supreme Court riled in April that Australia’s detention of asylum seekers on Manus Island was illegal, breaching the right to personal liberty contained in the country’s constitution.
Sr Monica said that the sisters also fully supported calls for ‘Summit of Solutions’ on the issue of asylum seekers, “so that the best alternatives can be thrashed out in a bipartisan way”. “We are making a personal appeal to Mr Turnbull and Mr Shorten: please put human dignity above politics by agreeing to work together.”
Misha Coleman, executive officer of the Australian Churches Refugee Taskforce, said the one-off amnesty for people in the offshore centres would involve less than 2000 people.
“Most of these people have already been found to be refugees,” she said. “They have ‘done their time’ in the harshest possible conditions imaginable. Let’s empty the camps. We also don’t accept that Australia has to turn people seeking asylum back to the countries from which they’ve fled, in order to have a sound policy framework. There are alternative solutions that are being ignored because of partisan debates. We need a Summit of Solutions now to force our leaders to put safety above politics.”
