From the start of its “offshore processing” program that has seen more than 2,000 asylum seekers and refugees dumped on two remote Pacific islands, Australia has relied on draconian nondisclosure contracts to keep the extent of its brutality secret. But this month Lynne Elworthy, an Australian mental health nurse employed on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea, defied the gag clauses and a federal law against whistle-blowers to tell me the policy was an exercise in “absolute cruelty.”

Elworthy, who lives in the south Australian town of Gawler, near Adelaide, has observed for more than three years the impact of endless limbo on men in Manus. She has watched them grow inert. She has seen the “plummeting lows” induced by Australia’s punitive measures, as I did during five days on Manus last month. She has witnessed refugees losing their lives through mayhem and medical negligence in what she calls the “lifeless pit” of confinement. In the end she felt compelled to speak out because “there is no room in my head or my heart for anyone except those guys on Manus.”

Now, Elworthy, who was supposed to return to Manus this week on her regular rotation, has been told she will not be going back. She has, it seems, been fired for her honesty.

In an email provided to me, International SOS, her employer, informed Elworthy that there were no flights available until Dec. 27 and that “the position you were filling has not been renewed past 31st December.” It continued, “We have to cancel all the remaining rotations for you as we simply don’t have the headcount approval.”