Asylum seekers incarcerated on Manus Island have written to thank Russell Brand for his online screed condemning Australia’s offshore detention policies.



“Please accept our heartfelt thank you for your efforts and publicity given to our plight,” the men of Foxtrot compound wrote.

The British comedian and political iconoclast posted an eight-minute video on The Trews website last week, lambasting the Australian government’s “racist and ideological ... policy” towards asylum seekers. Australia sends all refugees arriving by boat to offshore centres such as the one on Manus Island, part of Papua New Guinea.

“Stop the boats. What boats? All boats? No, just boats with poor people on them,” Brand says in his monologue.

He rhetorically asks the prime minister, Tony Abbott: “Tony, why are there even white people in Australia? How did white people get to Australia?”

In the video, watched more than 150,000 times in four days, Brand argues that profit-shifting to tax havens by global corporations should be stopped, with the money raised spent assisting the world’s refugees.

“We should be closing the doors for corporations who already have wealth and affluence and opening the doors to the needy.”

Despite restricted access to the internet and to phones, the 1,035 men detained on Manus are avid consumers of Australian and international news, and a large majority have reportedly watched the video.

Russell Brand’s monologue.

Their reply was written in Foxtrot compound on Tuesday. Handwritten in neat copperplate script, the letter from the asylum seekers is florid, even effusive, in its appreciation.

“We are writing from Foxtrot Compound inside the Manus Island offshore detention centre. Thank you for remembering us. Our voices are weak and nobody with any power listens to our friends and advocates. So for you to speak about us to such a wide audience is unique and heart-warming to us. Thank you so much.”

The missive condemns conditions in the Manus Island detention centre. Consistent reporting from media organisations, staff working on the island, international lawyers, and human rights organisations, has highlighted the problems that have beset the centre since it was re-opened, under the Gillard Labor government, in November 2012.

Violence, rape and sexual assault are commonplace according to staff on the island, detainees have been given expired medicine and out-of-date food, and “non-compliant” detainees are regularly sent to solitary confinement in Chauka, the secret isolation unit.

The letter to Russell Brand written by asylum seekers on Manus Island. Photograph: Supplied

“Manus cannot even be compared with a strict military camp because so many of the basic human facilities found in military camps are unavailable to us on Manus. This is supposed to be a processing centre but it is in fact a harsh prison, set in a remote and dangerous location, out of sight of the Australia[n] people whose government sent us here,” the asylum seekers’ letter says.

The letter mentions the two deaths of Manus detainees last year – Reza Berati, who was beaten to death in a riot, and Hamid Kehazaei, who died of an infection in his leg – as well as the recent fortnight-long hunger strike.

“During the recent hunger strike protest carried out within Foxtrot compound our community leaders made every effort to keep our protest peaceful and we are achieved this goal because the officials promised us that if we remain peaceful then our compound would remain free of the threatening, forceful interventions which at the time were imminent to other compounds.

“Foxtrot kept its part of the bargain. The officers did not. Fifteen of our leaders were forcefully removed and set [to] Lorengau prison to join the other 61 men [that] had already been sent to this prison. Up until today – 9 February 2015 – none have been returned to our compound.”

Communications have been heavily restricted in the Manus detention centre since the protest. Security officers have conducted regular sweeps of the camp compounds, seizing mobile phones and other personal property.

This would appear to be in contravention of camp manager Transfield’s stated policy, which guarantees detainees would “be able to communicate freely with family, friends, diplomatic or consular representatives, and other representatives”.

The men held on Manus Island are habitual letter writers. They have written to the Australian prime minister and to specific senators holding the balance of power, as well as to the US president, the New Zealand and Canadian governments and the United Nations.