In an emergency vigil on Friday, Australians gathered outside the Broadmeadows Immigration Detention Centre in Melbourne and protested against the indefinite detention of the Tamil asylum seeker Selva.
Thirty-seven year old Selva, or Sivaloganathan Kulachelvan, has been in detention for 37 months. Selva who has sewn his lips together in act of desperation, wrote a heart-wrenching open letter, outlining his plea for release where he calls himself as a "a worthless human being" and describes his sorrow at being away from his wife and daughter.
Selva's letter:
DEAR CITIZENS OF AUSTRALIA,
THE STORY OF MY LIFE IN DETENTION - A WORTHLESS HUMAN BEING
Please let me relate my story in the hope that I could solicit your support to bring some meaning to my life. At present, after 37 months in detention, I feel that I am "a worthless human being", to my beloved wife and daugthter; a daughter, who I have not seen, except in photographs.
I was able to share my love and affection with my wife for eleven (11) months, who I left when she was two months pregnant. I was not there to give her hand through her pregnancy, nor did I have the opportunity to be at her side when giving birth, and the opportunity to hold my daughter when she was born.
My beloved daughter is now two and half (2 1/2) years old, and has not had the opportunity of a cuddle, nor the warm embrace of a father; all she only hears is my voice intertwined with emotional cries of my unfailing love for her. After my daily calls to my beloved wife and daughter, I stay awake in bed unable to sleep. There are days when my emotions become uncontrollable, and I cry fulfilled with the shame that I have become "a worthless human being", and not a husband to my wife and a father to my daughter. These days bring mixed messages to my mind, where I think; death would be better.
The 37 months in detention has physically and mentally affected me to function as a normal human being, as detailed in the report by my Counsellor at Foundation House. This is a true reflection of a humang being affected by 37 months in detention in combination with the effects of war in Sri Lanka.