Northam Speech
Hi everyone, my name is P***11, that’s what I used to be called in the detention, P***11. Being next to this detention centre just reminded me of how I was in the Christmas Island Detention. I don’t know which words should I use to describe that experience…should I use terrible? It was really –
And…it’s like prison, it is a prison, it is not detention.Everything – everything is like, the doors are locked, you can’t go through any door if you don’t have an officer next to you, even the medical area. The medical area should be like for if someone is sick or he needs just treatment and…that door…I just remember very well – it was that thick. It’s very, very bad to be there even afterwards – I never had any problem, mental problem – even in Christmas Island – but I had um somehow a sleeping problem, I couldn’t like sleeping more than two hours, like continuously. So two hours, wake up, then do something, then another two hours. Afterwards when I came to Australia – the mainland –and I am free – I shouldn’t have that problem because I don’t worry about anything but still I have that problem for a while for like the first 6 or first 7 months there.The main issue there is you’re locked up and everyone is depressed, you just see your friends go, you make friend today – next day is gone. You don’t know, he’s just in the midnight, suddenly he is gone, he’s just like, next day you are looking for him then suddenly, you can’t find him because he has been transferred somewhere else.
Every week or every couple of days you will witness someone hang himself and that will like bring you down and already the detention is like kind of hell – you know I never been to hell – but it is hell. You know if you are somewhere in the hell and you want to climb up, you want to get out, but somehow, who runs that detention say, get down, that’s your place, it’s not up. It’s like every time you try to be better healthier, somewhere to do something good they say get down that’s your place, up is not your place.
Um personally, I witnessed three people, they commit suicide, you know one of them they uh, Sri Lankan guy, poor guy, he is died. He commit suicide by his bed- um – his bed sheets, um and he make like rope or something and he hang himself up, with somewhere very high. Just ask yourselves what kind of motivation he had to go all the way up just to hang himself and kill himself. And he was one of my friends, he had like problem like staying there for long time and depressed and he ended with, why am I here? Like what’s the end? Let’s just finish it, let’s kill myself and that’s it.
RRAN Meetings
RRAN WA and Fremantle RRAN meet the first Monday of the month at 6.30pm at the Boorloo Activist Centre, U15/5 Aberdeen Street, Perth (just north of the McIver Train Station or online via Jitsi. For more details, send us a message via our Contact RRAN WA page, or call/text us on 0412 860 168. Contact Fremantle RRAN