"Everyone has left me"

We are speaking of persons, who have already served their sentences.

The Danish government proposes to place "criminal foreigners" on a secluded seven acres island. "Criminal" as in persons who have served a sentence, but cannot be sent back or those who have taken part in foreign wars such as in Syria.

They would be barred from the rest of society.

Ali Durrani/Eaten Fish, Detail of Getting Beaten.

It would be against the rulings from our High Court just as it would be against the human rights if it were to become a reality. There is no such thing as "problem gone" by secluding certain persons or groups of persons in a responsible society. To willfully do wrong belongs to despotism.

The secluded would continue to be the responsibility of the government in what would be their reality going forward. Every beating, every incident of sexual abuse, and violence from other "inmates" as well as from the guards present is the action of the government.

We have cartooning evidence from within showing us the horrific face of that reality.

Ali Durrani/Eaten Fish. 

Please click the present cartoons for their detailing on the living hell Ali Durrani endured as an asylum seeker arriving in Australia in July 2013 until December 2017 when he was rescued to Norway. He arrived at the very moment the Australian Prime Minister announced an arrangement with Papua New Guinea to send on asylum seekers to an "offshore" placement while their status was being assessed. Ali was but 21.

He was sent to Manus Island in 2014 where he endured a living hell of violence and sexual harassment. Drawing became a means of keeping going, buying a pen through his weekly points, while paper had to be stolen one sheet at a time from the office, as he told me when we met in May this year.

So each sheet is used to the full, brimming over with information on what took place.

We learn of the friend who died from violence and subsequent neglect. His grave is a constant presence as an insistence and homage of his life lost, just as we learn of the guards becoming part of the problem egging on the violence taking place. For one, stealing the paper meant punishment.

And no, drawing was no help to him. It did not make him feel better. To humankind, on the other hand, it is important documentation on what happens, when isolation and neglect are made acceptable means. People died from it on Manus Island. Ali very nearly became one of them.

The far-right extremists who have a deciding voice in Danish politics have denounced the term "human" as if that is something that can be undecided by waving it off. Again, please click on the present cartoons and do look up Ali's work penned as Eaten Fish.

This is proof of humanity when it is denounced.

Ali Durrani/Eaten Fish, Nightmare. 

The cartoons shown are courtesy of Ali Durrani.