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Name
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Manus Island Regional Processing Centre, also known as Manus Prison
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Type of carceral site
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Detention Centre
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Dates of use
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2001 – 2008
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2012 – 2019
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Quote
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Against Erasure - Manus Island.
Website/3D Model.
Loughnan, Claire et al. Against Erasure - Manus Island. https://omeka.cloud.unimelb.edu.au/against_erasure-manus_island/manus-island-detention-centre.
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My life in Manus Camp was a rope that led me into the deepest recesses of the Australian psyche. It led me to Australia not as a country or a nation but as a colonial mindset. [...] Manus is the collective unconsciousness of Australia.
Opinion Article.
Boochani, Behrouz. "The Many Incarnations of Australia's Convict Mentality." The Saturday Paper, 2 Mar. 2024, https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/comment/topic/2024/03/01/the-australia-prison. Accessed 13 May 2026.
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كاشتم بذز كل افتاب كَردان تو مانوس
كل افتاب كَردان راه خورشيد رابيدا ميكند
در مانوس
كل افتاب كردان ذره اى هست از نور
خورشيد
هر برك بركش شعله ور ميشود مثل
خورشيد
I planted the sunflower's seed on Manus
It will find its way towards the sun
It's a part of the sun, a piece separated from the sun
.Each of its petals is flaming like the sun
.Narrative/Poetry
., Maleki, Mohammad Ali. The Strong Sunflower. Writing Through Fences, 2018
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They have spent quite some time forming an image of Manus Island in our minds, a savage image of the people, the culture, the history, the landscape [...] The information we had access to explained that the Manusians are cannibals. Rather than striking fear into me, these thoughts hearten me, inspire me [...] perhaps they will delight in eating my bony arms, I think. No doubt they would fight over this …. Especially if those arms are like mine: little hair, delicate and long.
Autobiography.
Boochani, Behrouz. No Friend but the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison. Picador, 2018, p. 83.
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I was standing in front of the gate with one of the fellows, and one of the security guards held the fellow's ID card and the guard was calling his name. And the guard did it three times or four times but the fellow, he didn't even reply to him. So what does that mean? The security guard was thinking that, Oh, this guy is just pretending, but I said to him, 'Look, man, no is pretending here. Why should he pretend to you? We forgot our names'.
Testimony/Memoir.
Muhamat, Abdul Aziz. "When I was a kid I had heaps of dreams in my mind." They Cannot Take the Sky: Stories from Detention, edited by Michael Green and André Dao, Allen & Unwin, 2017, pp. 221-236.
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Authority
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Immigration Department (Papua New Guinea); Department of Immigration and Border Protection (Australia)
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Archives and sources
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Abdile, Hani, et al. Southerly 79.2: Writing Through Fences - Archipelago of Letters, vol. 79, no. 2, January 2021.
Ealom, Javiet. Escape from Manus: The Untold True Story. Penguin Australia, 2021.
Harkin, Natalie. "Boat People." Dirty Words. Cordite Books, 2015, p. 3.
Maleki, Mohammad Ali. The Strong Sunflower. Writing Through Fences, 2018.
Muhamat, Abdul Aziz, host.The Messenger. (podcast).
Perera, Suvendrini, et al. Deathscapes (2016-2020): Mapping Race and Violence in Settler States, Australian Research Council, 2017, https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20201103065140/http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/173410/20201103-1648/www.deathscapes.org/index.html.
They Cannot Take the Sky: Stories from Detention. Edited by Michael Green and Andre Dao. Allen and Unwin, 2017.
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Contact
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Kieren
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identifier
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SITE-MIRPF
