'[H]ow can I describe the pain and suffering? Who can answer our questions and explain what human rights and freedom means? ... nobody can answer my questions and they are treating me like a criminal. We begin the day with pain and we sleep under nightmares.' This is Kurdish Iranian journalist, Behrouz Boochani, describing his detainment on Manus Island
(The Saturday Paper, January 23).

Today we are united in protest against a most shameful period of Australia's history. We ask that you put an end to a system that not only refuses to grant protection to some of the world's most vulnerable people, but inflicts harm and trauma on the already traumatised. We ask that you show courageous and compassionate leadership by renouncing a policy that has resulted in rape, sexual abuse of children, death, violence by guards, corporal punishment, and delays in appropriate medical care for seriously ill people.

In addition we are most disturbed by the measures taken to silence medical professionals carrying out vital work at detention centres. We note that Dr Peter Young, former director of mental health services at International Health and Medical Services, regards this system as fitting the current definition of torture – 'the deliberate harming of people in order to coerce them into a desired outcome'. We note that in 2015 the UN defined Australia's treatment of asylum seekers as violating the Convention Against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

How is it that we have come to this? Dr David Isaacs, Clinical Professor of Paediatric Medicine, University of Sydney, describes the culture of harm and self-harm he witnessed in his work on Nauru and the rope burns he saw on the neck of a six-year-old child (ABC Radio National, January 20). He states in several interviews, unequivocally, detention 'is child abuse'.

We ask that you meet Australia's obligations to the Convention of the Rights of the Child, which recognises that refugee children are especially vulnerable, that they should be treated with respect and humanity, have the right to healthy development, be protected and recover from past trauma.

Australia is a signatory to the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (since 1948) and has ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT) and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CROC). In line with Australia's stated commitment to human rights, we ask that you immediately release all children from detention and introduce community based programs for housing refugees.

Not only does our current system bring shame to Australia, in its demonstration of brutal government power and disregard for human dignity it brings shame on us as a nation. We express our outrage at this in the strongest possible terms. Our country's diverse communities are strengthened by the many ethically courageous people who work to support its most powerless and voiceless members. It is your role too, as our leaders and elected officials, to safeguard human rights, irrespective of the political, historical or ideological climate.

Donna Abela, Jenny Ackland, Debra Adelaide, Michael Mohammed Ahmad, Niki Aken, Ali Alizadeh, Chris Andrews, Nicky Arnall, Blake Ayshford, Stuart Barnes, Hilary Bell, Saskia Beudel, Miro Bilbrough, Tony Birch, Shelley Birse, Stephanie Bishop, Georgia Blain, Andrew Bovell, James Bradley, Michael Brennan, David Brooks, Judy Buckrich, Mary Anne Butler, Marion Campbell, Gabrielle Carey, Peter Carey, AO, Stephen Carleton, A.J. Carruthers, Jo Case, Bonny Cassidy, Belinda Castles, Brian Castro, Belinda Chayko, Justin Clemens, Bernard Cohen, Claire Corbett, Matthew Cormack, Patricia Cornelius, Rico Craig, Louise Crane Bowes, Alison Croggon, Sophie Cunningham, Stephen Daisley, Robyn Davidson, Tegan Bennett Daylight, Joel Dean, Dan Disney, Liz Doran, Ceridwen Dovey, Jo Dutton, Monica Dux, Abbas El-Zein, Christine Evans, Delia Falconer, Michael Farrell, S.J. Finn, Anna Funder, Raimond Gaita, Janet Galbraith, Helen Garner, Anna Gibbs, Andrea Goldsmith, Kerryn Goldsworthy, Lisa Gorton, Mac Gudgeon, Kaye Hall, Rebecca Harkins-Cross, Anita Heiss, Fiona Hile, Sarah Holland-Batt, Marcia Jacobs, Noëlle Janaczewska, Gail Jones, Jill Jones, Myfanwy Jones, Nicholas Jose, Melanie Joosten, Mireille Juchau, Aashish Kaul, Tom Keneally, AO, Richard King, John Kinsella, Krissy Kneen, Kirsten Krauth, Tony Krawitz, Michelle de Kretser, Linda Jaivin, Sarah Lambert, Benjamin Law, David Lawrance, Julian Leatherdale, James Ley, Amanda Lohrey, Joan London, Wayne Macauley, David McCooey, Fiona McFarlane, Fiona McGregor, Jasper Marlow, Angela Meyer, Susan Midalia, Kathryn Millard, Michael Miller, Jennifer Mills, Drusilla Modjeska, Michelle Moo, Frank Moorhouse, AM, Kris Mrksa, Stephen Muecke, Tommy Murphy, P.M. Newton, Debra Oswald, A.S. Patric, PEN Melbourne, PEN Sydney, Elliot Perlman, Lachlan Philpott, Felicity Plunkett, Marcella Polain, Rachel Power, Sandra Leigh Price, Hannie Rayson, Nick Reimer, Judith Rodriguez, Trent Roberts, Peter Rose, Gillian Rubinstein (Lian Hearn), Gig Ryan, Tracy Ryan, Omar Sakr, Jan Sardi, Luke Scholes, Kim Scott, Rosie Scott, AO, Leni Shilton, Cate Shortland, Alex Skovron, Jeff Sparrow, Boaz Stark, Maria Takolander, Philip Tarl Denson, Katherine Thomson, Kirsten Tranter, John Tranter, Lucy Treloar, Christos Tsiolkas, Maria Tumarkin, Jessica L. Wilkinson, Geordie Williamson, Charlotte Wood, Alexis Wright, Fiona Wright, Kate Wyvill, Beth Yahp, Arnold Zable, Catherine Zimdahl

EASY TARGET

Dear Editor,

Malcolm Turnbull gave an excellent speech at the recent opening of the National Library's Celestial Empire exhibition and praised the Library's work, while ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr extolled the virtues of such exhibitions for the ACT economy. At the same time, the Turnbull government is cutting the budgets of Canberra's national cultural institutions by $20 million over four years through the now much-derided 'efficiency dividend'. Meanwhile, exactly $20 million is to be spent on a new Australian Taxation Office fit-out in Gosford, which neither the local community, nor allegedly the ATO, want. Throw in the $55 million that apparently located three refugees in Cambodia, and one wonders about overall government budget priorities.

Why are the arts seen as an easy target, given the large national audience participation in the arts? The National Library's extensive newspaper digitisation project and Trove are just two examples of their outstanding national services that reach beyond Canberra. The idea of reducing physical access to national cultural and heritage collections to one day a week is even more short-sighted.

One really hopes Turnbull is not just 'Abbott-lite'.

Colin Steele, Hawker, ACT.

TALE OF TWO TEDS

Dear Editor,

At the end of his review of Jonathan Bate's biography Ted Hughes: The Unauthorised Life (January–February 2015), Michael Hofmann notes with approval a story of Hughes being mistaken for cricketer Ted Dexter at Cambridge in 1952 and congratulated 'for saving England'.

Plainly, this never happened. In 1952, Dexter, as a seventeen-year-old Radley schoolboy, was possibly still meting out corporal punishment to his fag, Peter Cook – Cook would later get his revenge! Dexter did not attend Cambridge University until 1955 and did not play for England until 1958.

Bernard Whimpress, Medindie, SA

KENTRIDGE'S KITCHEN SINK

Dear Editor,

Michael Halliwell has contributed a fine review of William Kentridge's production of Winterreise at the Sydney Festival (Arts Update), but I was not the only person in the audience who thought the Kentridge component a modish irrelevance. At one point I thought that the relentless avalanche of images embraced everything but the kitchen sink, until lo! up flashed a kitchen sink closely followed by a tap and a goldfish bowl.

The singing and accompaniment were as fine as one could ever hope to hear. Matthias Goerne is a singer without peer. He acts with the voice; his body language and vocal colour astonish. I am with Mr Halliwell when he suggests that 'many in the audience wished that this performance could have commenced once more'. But without the modish, fizzing visual 'accompaniment'.

Leo Schofield (online comment)

Dear Editor,

The woman seated next to me said at the end of the performance: 'Wonderful, but it didn't need the Kentridge.' I'm inclined to agree with her – and with Leo Schofield. I am a huge admirer of Kentridge's work, but I found many, if not most, of the images familiar from other contexts; this set up a mental duel as I attempted to reposition them. It was also too dark in the theatre to decipher the translation. Less familiar with the words than the images, I would have liked surtitles.

Virginia Duigan (online comment)