Your extensive coverage of the brutal treatment of asylum seekers, including very young children and teenagers, detailed in the Nauru files (10-12 August) is disturbing, powerful and important investigative journalism.

However, your editorial (11 August) fails to acknowledge that such an inhumane deterrence policy is the foundation stone of the Australian points system for controlling immigration – a system that was much lauded by Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Nigel Farage and other leading leave campaigners during the EU referendum.

Taken together, your coverage of Nauru, Manus, Calais and beyond shows that we now have a global narrative of despair for those seeking asylum: stay and suffer, leave and risk drowning or being returned, arrive and be dehumanised as deterrence fodder. The waste of human potential is tragic, as we know from the resilience of those who are given the opportunity in the UK and elsewhere. Just witness the pride of Team Refugee in the Rio Olympics – and the warmth of their reception.

Mike Stein

Emeritus professor, University of York

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