The Australian government is being accused of subjecting refugees and asylum seekers to an elaborate and cruel system of abuse by holding them on Nauru, according to a new report released tonight by Amnesty International.
The report comes after senior director for research Anna Neistat travelled to Nauru in July for five days and met 58 refugees and asylum seekers and service providers.
Amnesty cited "credible" reports asylum seekers were being jailed for harming themselves or threatening to, despite Nauru this year decriminalising suicide.
It criticised Australia's offshore processing regime, saying it fitted the definition of torture under international law.
Dr Neistat accused the Australian government of running an open-air prison.
"It is a model that minimises protection and maximises harm," she said.
"The only direction in which Australia is leading the world on refugees is in a dangerous plunge to the bottom."
Dr Neistat said nearly everyone she spoke to on the island, including children, reported mental health issues that began when they were transferred to Nauru.
"I met children who had tried to kill themselves multiple times," she said.
“The government of Australia has isolated vulnerable women, men and children in a remote place which they cannot leave, with the specific intention that these people should suffer. And suffer they have – it has been devastating and in some cases, irreparable.”
With AAP