Chalk portrait inspires hope for refugee

Chalk portrait inspires hope for refugee
Spencer Fowler Steen

A chalk drawing on the pavement outside Carlton’s Park Hotel, where daily protests demand the release of around 12 refugees detained there, has inspired hope for an asylum seeker locked up in Papua New Guinea.

According to activist Lieke Janssen, Helal “Spicy” Uddin – a refugee who is currently being held in immigration detention at Bomana Prison by the Federal Government in Papua New Guinea – was reminded that he was not alone when he saw the Carlton portrait.

“He loves it, he felt a bit proud,” she said. “He was quite moved and I do believe that when people become more in touch with him they will help him to realise there’s still hope.”

Ms Janssen said Spicy, who has been locked up for nearly two years, had been on a hunger strike when she asked Carlton-based artist, Peter Green, to draw the portrait outside Park Hotel.

“He was just desperate, and everything seemed like it was against him,” she said.

“I asked Peter to do that as moral support for him and as soon as Peter made it Spicy showed me the picture (he’d received) from other refugees. So he actually saw it before me.”

In a major blow to government, 26 men were recently released from Park Hotel detention after a Federal Court judge ruled against indefinite and arbitrary detention.

The men were brought to Australia for urgent medical attention after spending years on Manus Island and Nauru.
However, around 12 men remain detained at Park Hotel where protests have continued unabated seven days a week.

Spicy had been refusing to eat or drink when Ms Janssen contacted Mr Green, a former activist and protestor-turned-art-teacher.

Mr Green said, although chalk was not an ideal medium to work with, he managed to draw an image of Spicy from a photo.

“Visual images are much more powerful than text,” he said. “At the moment, I’m planning an image of police next to a banner saying ‘free the refugees’.”

While protests had previously been scheduled from 5pm to 6pm on weekdays, with the detainees able to view protestors from the hotel, Ms Janssen said Australian Border Force recently changed the time of dinner to coincide with the protests.

“It’s not a coincidence. It’s trying to break the moral of the guys,” she said. “It’s things like this they do to constantly sabotage it. On the first day they arrived, they put dark plastic on the windows so they couldn’t see out.”

Ms Janssen said protests were now scheduled to start at 6pm on weekdays and 3pm on weekends.

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