Transcript
The Kurdish journalist and detainee Behrouz Boochani says Manus Island refugees are appalled by the offer to move to what they describe as another hell.
"Nauru is the same is Manus so it is shameful that the Australian government after four years is saying that you can go to Nauru. Nauru is a hell, same as Manus. I think it is the time that the Australian government should take the refugees to a safe place."
Legal advocate Daniel Webb from Australia's Human Rights Law Centre says the government is scrambling to prolong its offshore detention of refugees as the PNG government forces the gradual demolition of the Manus centre with detainees still inside.
"And it beggars belief that four years later, these innocent men are still trapped behind those same fences. Now after four years of fear and suffering and violence, these guys deserve safety. Just shunting them from one prison island to another doesn't cut it. I mean, it is not good enough for the Australian government to just shift the suffering, to just shift the cruelty. They've got to end it and bring these men to safety."
Three buildings in Manus Island's Lorengau town and a prison camp in Port Moresby have been earmarked to receive detainees after the centre's closure.
But Behrouz Boochani says dozens of attacks on refugees by Manusian locals show refugees should not be left in Lorengau.
"That place is very dangerous for the refugees and also for the local people because their community is very small. They don't have the capacity to accept the refugees. Eight-hundred strange men in a very small town, so it will be very dangerous and definitely will be more conflict between the refugees and local people."
Only 25 out of about 900 Manus detainees have so far been resettled in the United States, while 150 detainees face deportation back to the persecution they fled.
This is Ben Robinson-Drawbridge.
