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Abdul Aziz Muhamat, a A Sudanese refugee activist who spent years in a detention center for Australian immigrants in Papua New Guinea (PNG) won a prestigious international human rights award for revealing "very cruel policy to "Refugees" from the Australian Government.
Aged 25, who has tirelessly defended the rights of refugees during his five years of detention, he was named winner of the 2019 Martin Ennals Award in the Swiss city of Geneva at a ceremony that was held. held Wednesday night.
Muhamat, who had fled the war in Darfur, in western Sudan, was sent to the island of Manus (PNG) by the authorities after interception of the boat on which he was heading to reach the Australian shores in 2013 as part of Canberra's rigorous and highly criticized offshore immigration treatment policy.
More than five years later, Muhamat is still rotting on this isolated island where he works 24 hours a day to help some 500 other refugees and asylum seekers – fromroviding impromptu counseling and talk about friends and counterparts from self harm and suicide to teach them English and liaise with journalists and lawyers.
Their detention and living conditions have been denounced as "inhuman" and "systemic tortures" by the United Nations and human rights organizations.
"This award highlights the Australian government's very cruel policy on refugees," Muhamat said in a statement of acceptance.
"It also draws international attention to the dangers and ill-treatment of refugees around the world, including in countries that claim to abide by the Refugee Convention."
Muhamat said that opposing "this cruel system helps to preserve my esteem for me and my human dignity".
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A story of a human rights defender on Manus Island in his own words (3:16) |
Following a court decision taken by PNG that declared it illegal, the center of the island of Manus was officially closed by Australia late 2017 – its last men still ejected violently and transferred in "transition centers" – after a large cohort withstood power for several weeks. , water, food and medicine, garnering considerable media coverage.
Muhamat was at the forefront of the refusal to leave the center.
"I have never felt that I was free in five and a half years, with the exception of those 24 days," he told Al Jazeera last year. "I felt that people called me" Aziz "instead of Q and K and zero, zero two."
Having been transferred from the detention center to the image of a prison, the refugees are now in underserved camps that they are free to leave. Most however remain on the spot,
For Muhamat, the daily ritual of helping others over the years – has been an integral part of survival.
Muhamat obtained a temporary Swiss visa to travel to Geneva to accept annual award, named in honor of a British activist laureate of the Nobel Peace Prize and awarded to human rights defenders since 1994. He is ready to return to Manus next week.
Since his arrival on the island, Muhamat "has never stopped making his voice heard among people deprived of his most basic rights," said Dick Oosting, president of the Martin Ennals Foundation.
"He has shown extraordinary tenacity and courage, still resisting peacefully even after a policeman shot him in the leg."
"The Australian government must respect its international obligations and put an end to these inhumane practices," Oosting said.
In a statement, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) praised Muhamat's advocacy work, insisting that "solutions be urgently found for all refugees and asylum seekers treated as part of Australia's offshore processing in Papua New Guinea and Nauru ".
Muhamat's honor comes just a few weeks after another Manus detainee, Iran-Kurdish author Behrouz Boochani, received Australia's richest literary award for his book.
On Wednesday, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced the reopening of an immigration detention camp on Christmas Island, in the Indian Ocean, after his government lost a parliamentary vote on the issue of medical evacuations for refugees in detention of immigrants.
SOURCE:
Al Jazeera and news agencies
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