Transcript
Asylum seekers and refugees held on Papua New Guinea's Manus island have written to the country's chief justice and told him they are still being held against their will on the island.
It's over three weeks since PNG's Supreme Court ruled the detention on Manus of about 900 asylum seekers who were refused entry to Australia was illegal.
One of the refugees, the Kurdish Iranian journalist, Behrouz Boochani, told Johnny Blades the PNG and Australian governments were misleading the media by claiming they were complying with the court ruling.
BEHROUZ BOOCHANI: This prison is not open. They are making propaganda, saying this prison is open. And they say that we are accepting the PNG high court decision but this is a big lie and they are liars. This prison is not open. We want the investigate our letter.
JOHNNY BLADES: Who is running the centre: is it the police, is it PNG Immigration, is it Broadspectrum?
BB: You know, this company, Broadspectrum, their officers are here, with Wilson Security, they are here. But PNG police they are here too. And really we don;t know which one is controlling this prison.
JB: And have you been given any clear indication about what might happen to you, your future, all of you?
BB: We don't know what will happen on future. We are protesting, peacefully protesting during the last four days. Actually this protest is not only against PNG. This protest is against Australian Immigration because Australian government exiled us to this remote island, and they are responsibility with us, they are responsible and they should answer to us.
JB: You've told us a lot about the conditions there, very challenging, very difficult. But is this the same for all of the people there, all 850, the refugees and those not yet found to be refugees? Is everyone living in the same conditions?
BB: You know, I want to say a thing, that the processing is fake. And this is not real processing centre. Because those people that got positive results and they are refugees, they are still in prison. And those people that didn't get positive results, and they are negative, they are still in prison. We can't say that there is any difference between those people with positive results and those people with negative results. They processing with torture element and they are make torture by their processing policy. All of the processing itself is illegal and against international law. We don't access to any lawyer here in this remote island, and this is our right that anybody can access to lawyer. But we don't access to any lawyer here for our processing as asylum seekers.
Behrouz Boochani said he and his fellow detainees were taken by Australia to Manus against their will three years ago.
The letter from him and hundreds of others held on Manus said they have never wanted to settle in PNG and the reason why they sought refuge in Australia was because they had no other choice at the time.
