and there were also complaints about outstanding pay, poor staff treatment, and workplace conditions. The workers believed that the A$44m paid for the contract was not being wisely spent. Human rights issues According to PEN International, "Manus Island has become notorious for its ill-treatment of detainees where violence, sexual abuse and self-harm are reportedly common". Secrecy provisions in law In 2014 the National Security Legislation Amendment Act (No. 1) made it a crime, punishable with up to a 10-year prison sentence, to disclose any special intelligence operation, including relating to asylum seekers. This provided little protection to journalists seeking to report on information from whistle-blowers. It caused professional journalists as well as teachers, and health professionals employed in these detention centres, to be silenced. Journalists were prevented from entering or reporting and staff members were gagged under draconian employment contracts that prevented them from speaking about anything happening in Australia's offshore detention centre, under threat of a prison sentence. The Secrecy and Disclosure Provisions of the 1 July 2015 Australian Border Force Act ruled that workers who spoke of any incidents from within one of the centres would receive a 2-year prison sentence. This was later watered down in amendments put forward by Peter Dutton in August 2017, after doctors and other health professionals had mounted a high court challenge. The amendments would apply retrospectively and stipulated that the secrecy provision would only apply to information that could compromise Australia's security, defence or international relations, interfere with criminal investigations offences, or affect sensitive personal or commercial matters. Human rights defenders win awards Two voices have been prominent amongst detainees in publicising the plight of the asylum seekers from the island itself: Iranian journalist Behrouz Boochani and Zaghawa Sudanese man Abdul Aziz Muhamat, also known as Aziz. Boochani won a top Australian literary award for his novel No Friend But the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison in January 2019. On 13 February 2019, Aziz won the 2019 Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders, which is given to human rights defenders who show deep commitment to their work at great personal risk; it also helps to provide protection through increased international recognition for the winner. He was allowed to travel to Geneva in Switzerland to accept the award. Aziz spoke to international media and tweeted regularly from the island, shedding light on the what life was like for those in offshore