“I saw it with my eyes … They punished three of them ... so they would never want to go to the toilet again”. Yousif Ibrahim Fasher gave Fairfax journalist Michael Bachelard this eyewitness account of asylum seekers being tortured by the Australian navy.

Fasher, a Sudanese man currently detained on an island off the coast of Sumatra, says navy personnel held the hands of asylum seekers to a hot exhaust pipe on their wooden fishing vessel.

Two others also suffered burns: his wife, when she was shoved to the ground by navy personnel, and another man who fell after being capsicum sprayed in the eyes for protesting the restrictions on toilet use.

The navy’s failure to search for four men who had fallen overboard in rough seas only hours before the boat was intercepted completes this horrifying insight into the dark heart of Abbott’s refugee policy.

No Australian official has bothered to speak to Fasher. No investigation has been launched. Never mind that subsequent victims of Abbott’s policy have corroborated elements of Fasher’s story.

Instead, the government has threatened to investigate the ABC for airing the initial allegations. Waging a culture war on the public broadcaster might be popular among free-market fundamentalists and Abbott’s buddies at News Corp, but he need not worry about the ABC’s “left wing bias”.

Management has already capitulated, directing staff to “stick to the facts”. “We regret if our reporting led anyone to mistakenly assume that the ABC supported the asylum seekers’ claim”, said a statement.

“Who do you believe?” Abbott asks, “Do you believe Australian navy personnel or do you believe people who are attempting to break Australian law?”

I’d put my money on the eyewitness account. Surely it would come as no surprise if the systematic dehumanisation of refugees led to atrocities. And Fasher hardly stands to gain anything for speaking out. It may well lead to him spending more time in detention.

The ALP is predictably missing in action. Its politicians are unmoved by stories of refugees being tortured on the high seas. Instead, they bemoan the government’s lack of transparency. Or they boast that they are the ones that put in place the policy infrastructure to “stop the boats”.

At least they are telling the truth about this.

It was the ALP that brought us the PNG deal; that broke records by locking up more than 2,000 children in detention and excised the Australian mainland from the migration zone.

Far from a sharp break, Abbott’s refugee policies continue the ALP’s legacy. That’s not to say there hasn’t been an escalation in cruelty under Abbott. There has. The boat turn backs are an example.

So is the reintroduction, under a new pseudonym, of Temporary Protection Visas that will put refugees’ lives in permanent limbo. Without rights to family reunion, they will forever be separated from their loved ones whose lives also often remain in danger.

While the situation is bleak, there have been a few bright moments. For some it’s the announcement the Australian Human Rights Commission that it will conduct an inquiry into the impact of detention on children. Of course, the inquiry is welcome. But it won’t tell us something we don’t already know: detention centres are traumatising places that subject people to enormous mental stress.

For me, it’s the arrival of Nimal, who has finally been allowed to come to Australia. He was the spokesperson for 254 Tamil refugees who staged a heroic six and a half month protest, beginning in 2009, after their boat was intercepted and detained at the Indonesian port of Merak.

They refused to leave the port until the Australian government committed to resettle them here. They were forcibly removed to Tanjung Pinang detention centre in April 2010.

There are many more rebels who follow in Nimal’s footsteps.

On Manus Island protests have spread to all four compounds and Christmas Island has been rocked by hunger strikes in recent weeks.

The job of those on the outside is to stand in solidarity with every act of refugee resistance. And we have to say loud and clear: Let them in and let them stay.