An Afghan refugee lies unconscious at a Manus Island police station after being attacked by locals wielding iron bars. A PNG police officer tries to stop the photograph being taken. Picture: Matthew Abbott.
A rare visit to the Manus Island detention centres to interview and photograph refugees revealed the violence awaiting them in the community and the obstacles to reporting this black spot.
you have ever wondered why we don’t see pictures from the Australian-run detention centres on Manus Island and Nauru, this story might help to explain.
This is the story of a 31-year-old Australian photojournalist from Sydney, Matthew Abbott, who managed to get to Manus Island last week.
It was only for a few days but the difficulties he encountered, from both the Papua New Guinean authorities and the overseers of the detention centres there, started almost as soon as he landed. In the few days he was on Manus, he witnessed and photographed violence against refugees by the local population, saw the decomposing corpse of a refugee the Australian government refuses to repatriate, was threatened with death and was detained by the PNG police. And, yes, they tried to delete his photos.
Abbott had been to Papua New Guinea before, once on holiday and once shooting material for the PNG Tourism Promotion Authority. He organised a business visa through some local NGOs to accompany a representative of the Human Rights Law Centre, Daniel Webb, to Manus and interview refugees detained there.
It was supposed to be a simple job: take portraits of the men Webb was interviewing. No controversy, no trouble. But nothing to do with access to Australia’s offshore detention centres is straightforward. As Australia’s own minister for immigration and border protection has said, media access to both Manus and Nauru is an issue for those sovereign governments.
Read more HERE
John Martinkus, The Saturday Paper
