Prison islands for Australia

Protesters have been gathering in Australian cities to oppose cruel government plans to deport 267 refugees, including 72 children, to offshore detention in a prison island.

Australia has installed such detention centres in two foreign lands. One is located in the republic of Nauru: a remote and desolate phosphate island in the Pacific Ocean.

In this hot climate, people and their children have to live in tents, in a place where there is so little to do that many inmates tend to develop psychiatric problems.

Everybody knows that white Australia started as a penal colony for Britain, towards the end of the 18th century. Unfortunately, as a modern society, we seem to have retained certain aspects of what might be termed our "penal mentality".