German prisoner

WE have just learnt that the German national Sascha Grabow, 50, has been languishing in various prisons around Bougainville.
Grabow is currently in Buka Police Station.
For months now, sleeping on the same wood panel and under the same mosquito net with murderers.
Eating an identical, very basic meal each day, for the single reason of failing to obtain an exit stamp upon departure.
A thing of impossibility under current Bougainville circumstances – with immigration officials levelling further threats and intimidation attempts at him, even in the presence of other prisoners.
One really wonders about the state of the nation when just a couple of days ago, a whole prison on Buka island was shut down.
It was emptied and 35 criminals were walking free and roaming the town’s streets, over a dispute about the distribution of a service vehicle.
Here, a Government official can’t sleep anymore and worries about nothing else for the last six weeks but one more of the 200-plus stamps in the traveler’s passport.
I mean, pinch and reality-check yourself here.
One may also wonder whether the German Government and European Union, which have just recently approved a multi-million euro grant/donation to the PNG Government, may actually reconsider/review this grant once they hear that one of their nationals suffers this subhuman incarceration.
Sascha Grabow is a worldwide famous globetrotter and also a writer, one of the few people to have visited every single one of the 193 United Nations’ countries of the planet.
He is one of the last remaining travelers and tourists courageous enough to come visiting our home country and islands.
He sees, in a world of businessmen, smugglers and profiteers, his main focus as creating mutual understanding between the people and nations, building friendships and exchanging intercultural values.
In this light, it is interesting to know that the German has been the world’s No.1 passport for the past three consecutive years, according to the International Passport Index.
This means that the immigration departments of countries around the world agree to judge and trust Germans to be more reliable and not to do anything harmful while visiting other countries, more so than with nationals from any other country.
Just last year Germany let one million people – many of them without any documentation at all, people from different religions, each one of them wanting something from the German Government – walk into their country, fed them, housed them, and welcomed all of them.
What a contrast indeed.

Tutak