When "illegal maritime arrivals" come to Australia by boat seeking refugee status, they're sent to two islands for processing. Like many Australians, I'd heard of Manus Island (off the coast of Papua New Guinea) and the Republic of Nauru. But I had no idea just how remote these places were until a few months ago. A quick look at Manus and Nauru on Google maps changed that. Australia's offshore processing centers on Manus Island and Nauru are thousands of miles from the Australian mainland. I would need to fly more than 2,000 miles north of Australia to see what conditions and technology access was like in Australia's government-mandated detention camps.
To get to Nauru, I was told I'd have to pay a non-refundable visa application fee of AU$8,000 ($6,200), But after several emails with Nauru's Director of Immigration, explaining my intentions to report on detention and our willingness to pay the fee, he said I couldn't even apply, The island apparently had an "accommodation shortage." Just days before my first request, one of Australia's tabloid news programmes had aired a report from Nauru after sending an entire TV crew there, Australia's Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) didn't respond to my vampires after dark iphone case questions about conditions in detention, saying the government doesn't run the camps and questions should be directed to the governments of PNG and Nauru, This, even though refugees there are seeking asylum in Australia, that offshore detention is an Australian government policy, and that the Australian government funds these centers -- to the tune of AU$1.1 billion per year..
The governments of PNG and Nauru never responded to my questions. The current Prime Minister of Australia, Malcolm Turnbull, and four former prime ministers turned down my requests for interview for this story. I sent eight interview requests to Australia's current Immigration Minister Peter Dutton. His office still hasn't responded. With the architects of Australia's offshore detention policies refusing to speak to me, I turned to people who have been able to use some tech to tell the world about offshore processing.
When I first contacted Behrouz Boochani via WhatsApp in July, I wasn't sure he'd even want to talk to me, We're both journalists, but he's spent three years vampires after dark iphone case on Manus Island after fleeing Iran and trying to get to Australia, Our lives couldn't be more different, Sitting in my office, typing messages over Wi-Fi on my phone, I found it hard to picture him sitting in the tropical heat in a jungle camp, Accommodation and recreation facilities in the Manus Island camp, He told me, in lengthy exchanges, about selling his clothes to buy a phone only to have it confiscated when his room was raided by guards, He told me about hiding under a sheet so he could type without being discovered as he sent stories to media outlets in Australia using WhatsApp and email..
He told me about internet speeds that are so slow they're turning his hair gray. I felt immense guilt that a refugee trying to reach Australia would have to live in such conditions. I'd seen photos of his camp on Facebook, as well as photos of messages scrawled in blood on walls inside the camp. Every time I started to type a reply to him, I was lost for words. But Behrouz isn't the only one trying to get the message out. Hidden camera footage obtained for the documentary film "Chasing Asylum" shows a child walking between tents and across phosphate rock in the Nauru detention center.
