GUEST BLOG: Damon Rusden – Christmas Island write-up

Two things about the recent event in which John Key claimed the Labour Party supports rapists and murderers because they question him about the breach of human rights on Christmas Island in Australia:

1) Key was out of line and deceptive to claim Labour supports rapists and murderers, as they obviously don’t have that intention.
2) He was right in saying that there are murders, rapists and child molesters. They are there, that’s a fact. And being inclusive of human rights means allowing theirs also.

This is necessary. If we allow any person under the supervision of a progressive country who believes, broadly, in human rights, then abandoning that for whatever reason, mostly political or for cost-effectiveness, reflects more on the society than the individual. I have the instinctive “lock them up and throw away the key” mentality when I hear about people committing rape or molesting a child. I have no sympathy whatsoever, and I never will. Yet if we are selective in who we give basic rights to, we regress to a time when people were killed on a whim. When we gave rights based on politics, connections or military strength. To cherry pick human rights completely undermines its purpose. Why bother to have rights when someone can simply take them away when it’s convenient? We know better. And to justify this lack of moral rationalizing by claiming Labour is supporting rapists and murderers is detracting from crucial dialogue – We, as a country, are complicit in the actions of the likes of Saudi Arabia and Australia by being silent and continuing relations.

Yes there are *some* horrible, disgusting human beings on Christmas Island, and they do not deserve our sympathy. They still, even now, roam around being violent and intimidating others held there.
Yet it’s also a place where by far the majority are innocent asylum seekers, or those who have committed only small or victimless crimes. It’s not a prison; it’s a detention centre. They have served their sentence, or have attempted to seek refuge illegally. Are we any better than those we use as justification for inaction if we allow innocent, or at least vindicated in the legal sense (they’ve served their time) to be abused?
To say that we support THEM, the innocent and those who deserve decency, as a collective, should not be falsely construed as supporting the minority of scum there. It’s genuinely misleading. It derails the discussion from where it should be: fundamental human rights.

We polarize ourselves over our own countrymen, whether or not they should be allowed back. To accept them.

Yes, we should.

We should be the ones to judge them in our courts, in our system. We should not leave ANYONE on an island stripped of principals. Basic rights is somethings millions have fought and died for, and continue to do so. Don’t throw it away because your first reaction is that they deserve it. Because we have a base instinct to subject certain people to continued punishment deserving of their crime. They cannot be punished forever; and you’re allowing persecution of far more innocent people by believing so. Punishing the many for the actions of the few is something everyone can agree is wrong.

I’m also saddened by how many people are only focused on the Kiwis, and ignoring the vast majority of innocent people subjected to this breach of international law. Not all are rapists and murderers, in fact very few are. Their crimes vary, but most are there because they tried to find a better place to live.

Don’t debase the progress we have made as a species simply because a few people. We are better than this.