Culture

Refugee Cartoonist Eaten Fish Has Ended His Manus Hunger Strike

Save Eaten Fish.

by Matilda Dixon-Smith  19 February 2017

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This post discusses abuse and self-harm. 

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Iranian asylum seeker, celebrated cartoonist and Manus Island internee, Eaten Fish, has ended his hunger strike after more than 19 days protesting the alleged mistreatment and abuse inflicted on him and other prisoners in the notorious detention centre. In a heartbreaking post on Facebook last night, the cartoonist announced his decision to end the hunger strike, which was “turning to some thing else which I don‘t want it to happen”.

“I’ve got crazy and wanna kill myself,” wrote Eaten Fish, aka Ali, in the tragic message. “I can’t stop thinking about killing myself/I don’t want to kill myself/But I can’t stop my thoughts.”

Eaten Fish, who is just 24 years old, began his hunger strike on January 31 in order to protest gross mistreatment by the guards, staff and some fellow detainees on Manus Island. The cartoonist suffers from severe Obsessive Compulsive Order, as well as PTSD from sexual and physical abuse both in the centre and back in Iran. He has described, in accounts verified by others imprisoned on Manus, how his compulsions manifest in detention, exacerbated by the horrors he has experienced while interned.

Refugee journalist and activist Behrouz Boochani told Fairfax that Eaten Fish “is always wearing plastic gloves. […] Everyone knows him as a young man who is always washing his hands or cleaning his room.”

Guardian Australia cartoonist First Dog On The Moon has been in regular contact with Eaten Fish since before his hunger strike began. Eaten Fish would share his cartoons with the Guardian cartoonist and share with him painful details, like how he “scrubbed and scrubbed until he bled”.

Once Eaten Fish began his hunger strike, First Dog and other cartoonists gathered together to support him via a campaign, Save Eaten Fish, including a petition and calls for artists to produce cartoons in solidarity with the detained cartoonist, and to post their work on Twitter as a show of support.

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Despite the flood of support for Eaten Fish to be transferred to Australia, where he can find safety and receive the proper care for his severe mental health issues, the Australian Government remains unmoved. The cartoonist has received a deportation order; however, as Greens senator Scott Ludlum clarified in parliament last week, this is not the reason for the protest.

“He is on a hunger strike because he has been the victim of sexual assault, chronic sexual harassment and abuse in Australia’s immigration prison camp,” Ludlum explained. “He cannot bear the suffering anymore.”

Eaten Fish arrived at Christmas Island in August 2013, at the age of 22, just two weeks after Kevin Rudd’s announcement that refugees who arrived by boat “will not be settled in Australia“. While in detention his mental health has rapidly deteriorated, exacerbated by frequent mistreatment from guards and harassment and abuse from fellow detainees.

In spite of his worsening situation, the cartoonist still manages to produce stunning and heartbreaking work, which has been published in the Sydney Morning Herald and the Guardian Australia, and in August last year he received the Award for Courage in Editorial Cartooning by Cartoonist Rights Network International for his work detailing the conditions on Manus Island.

Despite Ali’s perilous position and desperate need for proper medical assistance, he is too ill to undergo the rigorous refugee vetting process. On January 29 this year, while he was in an isolation unit reserved for at-risk internees on Manus, he was informed that his allegations of sexual abuse and harassment remained unsubstantiated, and he would be returned to the main compound of the prison camp. Feeling unable to express his desperation in any other way, Eaten Fish began his hunger strike shortly after.

Although the hunger strike has ended, the campaign to bring Eaten Fish to Australia for urgent treatment is still running, and you can contribute by signing the petition here, or you can contact your local member of parliament, or the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Peter Dutton.

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If you or someone you know needs help, you can call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or beyondblue on 1300 22 4636.