Appeal for Mandaean detainees

"I Write Freedom Till I Die"

These words were written in blood by a Mandaean detainee on a wall of Woomera detention Center in Australia. To what extremes must one endure to use their very own life blood to write upon the walls in protest? The images of the Gulags in the former U.S.S.R. under the iron fisted rule of Stalin, or the concentration camps of the Nazi’s comes to mind. The vivid images of horror that burn their gruesome pictures of truth into the minds of all, still. As a race, man should guard itself against the creation of these camps again.

Sadly, however, another of these horrible places of villainy has sprung up, and to make it worse, right under the noses of democracy. The very notion that these places exist under the banner of freedom that we claim democracy to be, shakes and challenges the foundation upon which it was laid. In the country of Australia, people are imprisoned like animals, treated inhumanely, and mercilessly persecuted in prison-like concentration camps. Their crime? To flee a land of persecution and find freedom, a place to live without being terrorized and tortured. . They came to Australia to breathe the pure air of a free society where they can worship in peace; instead they were shown the cruel, iron fist of the Australian Government, who instead of helping these poor refugees made an example of them, to further propagate their political agenda of xenophobic policies. The government wrongfully imprisoned them in ‘detention centers’ (a nice term for concentration camps), tortured them mentally and physically, then cut them off from the outside world to strip them of all hope and humanity. This treatment continues to this very day, and in ever worsening conditions.

We as a community of Mandaeans, across the world and from many different countries, implore, plead, and beg on our knees that some course of action be taken by the international community to aid these tormented people. We wish them to be freed from their slave bondage by the Australian Government; either acknowledge them as refugees or allow them to go to countries which will accept them as refugees. It is the Australian Government that has imprisoned them, made them suffer inhumane treatment, and keeping them from leaving and from their loved ones. What purpose could the government have in this? Is it not more economically and socially sound to help them on their way instead of imprisoning them? The answer is simple; they wish these people to suffer mercilessly to make an example of them to others who would want to seek freedom by going to Australia. Control by threat and fear: the same policy instituted by Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler, or Saddam Hussein.

Curtain, Woomera, and Baxter; these are three of the camps which house oppressed, refugee, Mandaean prisoners. Many others exist, scattered across the Australian continent far from any civilized city. In these camps, Mandaeans endure brutal treatment along with many other people of different creeds. The conditions of Baxter are ostentatious, they rival some of the worst ever crafted by man. First, the numbers: 239 people, 155 adult men, 32 adult women, and 52 children. Fifty-two innocent children being held by the government in camps, which make grown men break down mentally. The psychological trauma that everyone endures at these camps is devastating, but to these children, it is worse. One a single note is a picture drawn of a primitive catapult to launch someone over the razor wire electric fences. It is drawn in crayon, with the message, "It is possible, the way to freedom." But, perhaps the worst of this is the children who are too sick to write the ones who need desperate medical attention that the Australian Government denies them. A father, who has been imprisoned for two years in Port Hedland Detention Center, writes a simple note on poor quality paper with a cheap pen. An excerpt from the letter reads:

"I have two daughter 8 and 4 years old my younger daughter is sick. she has a heart problem and asthma and need special medical care and open heart surgery. I am stuck in the camp and don't know what to do to help my family. I met with Dimia and ACM and asked them to help me. but they didn't. I asked redcross to help. but they refused so the only source of hope for me in this dark place are good Asutralian people."

A father who is helpless to save his dying daughter of 4 years of age, all because of the Australian Government’s policy on refugees. And who are these terrible refugees that must be imprisoned under such inhuman terms. Some of these refugees are the Mandaeans. These people represent a small religious minority that has lived under intimidation and harassment by their oppressors in Iran and Iraq for centuries. However, in recent years because of turmoil and rigid Islamic rules in Iran and Iraq, the Mandaean people have been suffering a great deal of hardship such as persecution, religious repression and discrimination, violation of human rights, and inequality from both social and government authorities. These people are composed of a highly educated, skilled, and hardworking group. In recent years have left their native lands in hope of finding new homelands that will give them the protection and human rights that every human being is entitled of. The Mandaeans came to Australia’s shores where they expected to find freedom from opposition, freedom to pray in peace, freedom to go to school and learn, freedom to live unafraid, freedom of justice. Instead they were met with a government determined to use the Mandaeans along with others to deter future refugees from coming to Australia. By making his or her life so miserable, no refugee would dare to think about coming to Australia. The results of forced detention and the conditions of the camps have been documented by media sources worldwide.

These horrible conditions are not adequately described using words, for one must see the hell that these detention camps truly are. It would make anyone who has a soul cry or grow sick to his or her stomach. We implore you to aid the Mandaeans of these detention centers to send them to freedom; to be let out of this prison from which they were placed without crime. Any help will be greatly appreciated to free these detainees, and as Mother Theresa once said, "If you can not feed one hundred people, then just feed one." When you go home tonight, to your families, and your children or grand children look you in the eye and ask you what you have done today, please have the answer be, "I have helped free a people who were suffering and made the world a better place." Instead of, "I allowed hundreds of men, women, and children suffer under tyranny and die at the hands malice and persecution." We can ask no more, then to aid us to do what is right and just, in the name of God and humanity.

In closing, we thank you for your time, this opportunity, and the aid you may give, leaving you with one final thought:

"I said, 'We don't come here for a room. We don't come here for clothes. We don't come here for handouts. We come here for freedom to live! I said, 'If you understand, you tell all people outside.' (A Mandaean voice from Woomera)

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

Please sign the Online Petition
http://www.petitiononline.com/mandaean/

Inquiries/further information:

Mandaean Human Rights Committee UK Branch
c/0 NCADC
400 Cheetham Hill Road
Manchester M8 9LE
Phone 0161-740-8206
Fax: 0161-740-7113

Email: Mandaeans@ncadc.org.uk

Background documents on Mandaeans:

USA report on Iran.doc
Mandaean HR in Iran.doc
persecution.doc
MandaeanReligion.doc

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