Trapped in Nauru

The Herald reports:

How do you explain to the children that Daddy can’t find his way home?

“Initially, I told them that he had some important work that Nauru needed him to do and we weren’t sure how long it was going to take,” said Katy Le Roy.

But the children said, “Oh, we need him more!”

Eventually, Le Roy’s husband, Roland Kun, told his children on the phone from Nauru that his passport had been cancelled and he had to try to get another one.

That shouldn’t take long? It is 81 days and counting since Kun was removed from a plane as he was about to depart Nauru for New Zealand.

The children, Rosa, Yoshi and Hana, are 20 months, 5 and 7 years. The older two understand that their father is trapped.

Le Roy: “They are very upset and they miss him a lot. They know he desperately wants to be back home but that he can’t travel until he gets a passport.”

Kun is a native of Nauru, an MP who appears to be being punished for criticising a government that marches to nothing other than its own tune.

Stopping someone from going overseas is what you expect from the former Soviet Union countries, not Pacific countries.

And in January 2014 its judiciary was dispatched in a coup because, it is claimed, Nauru’s leaders didn’t like its decisions.

When Kun and several other opposition MPs complained about what had happened to the judiciary, they were suspended without pay in May last year. Kun became trapped in June this year. There was no warning and no charge has been laid against him. He is in limbo, living with Nauruan relatives and free to drive around the 21sq km island but not to leave.

Absolutely appalling. No rule of law.