Cruel and unusual punishment

I am a nearly 70-year-old nurse and I have never been so ashamed of this country and the behaviour it is currently showing. From allowing animals to be put on a ship and sent to countries that we probably suspect do not treat them in a humane way (Martin McKenzie-Murray, “The system driving live animal exports”, April 14–20) to treating refugees with a cruelty that is incomprehensible to me. Your article on the Kurdish widower Sadoullah Malakooti fills me with despair for this country and the so-called Australian values (Abdul Karim Hekmat, “All designed to fail you”, April 14–20). Peter Dutton and his department appear to have made the system so complicated and the rules nonsensical. That it took five years for Sadoullah to be interviewed and then not to be granted protection visas along with how many others in the same limbo is not what I would call Australian values, but then again obviously I am wrong.

– Kerry Stokes, Montrose, Vic