After it had been holding them on the islands for several years
Australia has been holding asylum seekers for more than a year in hotels with no sun
One of the refugees detained in the hotel shakes hands with a guard after his release.
EPA
Protesters in Australia demand the release of asylum seekers held at the Park Hotel in Melbourne.
EPA
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The asylum seekers, locked in Australian hotels, deprived of sunlight and sometimes fresh air, had no idea how long their ordeal would last when the Australian authorities detained Ramsayar Sabanayagam in a hotel in Mantra Bell City, Preston, on the outskirts of Melbourne, in November 2019, I think He would only be there for a few weeks, and instead Sapanayagam, a Sri Lankan refugee, spent the next 14 months locked in his room, with no sign in the horizon that his ordeal was over.
He was ordered, and for other refugees held in the hotel, to keep their windows closed, and after they protested, they were allowed to open them, but not for more than four inches. , And they watched them gather with their friends and loved ones in the dining hall below, but had no hope of joining in.
“These hotels are prisons,” said Sabanayagam, a member of the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka who fled violence in his homeland. “We spend 23 hours a day in our rooms and spend one hour in the corridor, where there is no sunshine and no fresh air.”
Stifling conditions
Over the course of nearly a year of the spread of the Corona epidemic, many people became fully aware of what it means to them to stay in their homes, but for Sabanayagam, and for dozens of other asylum seekers who were detained in Australian hotels, these stifling conditions extended for months and months, and prompted Some are to breaking point, as two of these attempt suicide.
All these refugees were previously held on an island for several years, under strict Australian immigration laws, before they were transferred to the mainland to receive medical treatment, and they say that the island's prisons were better, because they could at least get out and return to it whenever they wanted.
A few days ago, the Australian authorities faced increasing criticism, and quietly began releasing dozens of them, including Sapanayagam, and most of them were surprised after they suddenly gained their freedom in a country that gave them for years a clear impression that they were not welcome. The conditions for their release under temporary visas were unclear in In many cases, this left them unsure of whether they would be entitled to renew their visas when they expire, or to gain a new life in Australia.
Imad Moradi, a Kurdish refugee who left Iran in 2013, on a boat, said in the hours after his release: “I am happy, but it is a little scary.” He and the other refugees felt tears streaming from their eyes after they smelled the fragrance of freedom years later. In what feels like a prison.
The release of this group of refugees was one of the biggest concessions the Australian government has made to the country's refugee rights movement in recent years.
But more than 60 or so refugees are still being held at the Mantra Hotel, and some say they have not received any news of their visa status or when they might be released.
Refugee advocates say that at least 100 other people are still in the Kangaroo Point Central Hotel and Apartments in Brisbane, while others, including families, are being held in other motels and apartments or in permanent facilities.
“I completely collapsed today,” says Mohamed Joy Miah, who traveled by boat to Australia from Bangladesh in 2013 and has been detained in the hotel with him and others for nearly a year, adding that he and his fellow detainees are losing their feelings after the release of their roommates and friends.
Hamid Reza Yousfi, another asylum seeker, says he was shocked that the Australian government continued to detain him even after he was offered a conditional resettlement in the United States, according to an agreement reached with the US authorities during the term of former US President Barack Obama, and he tells the Australians "If you don't like me, send me to America."
attempt to suicide
Activists say that two of the detainees have attempted suicide, one of whom is Thanush Silvarasa (31 years old), who arrived in Australia by boat, in 2013, after fleeing Sri Lanka, and says that after being deprived of normal life for several years, he simply lost hope for life, and Silvarasa says, Who was transferred to a permanent facility after his suicide attempt and is still detained: “It is very difficult to be detained indefinitely, my only dream is freedom.”
Under Australia's strict immigration policy, the government is refusing to regularize the status of anyone arriving by boat, even legal asylum seekers.
Human rights groups say the policy violates international law.
These arrivals are transferred to overseas detention centers on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea, and in Nauru, a remote point in the Pacific Ocean.
Many of them see no indication that their situation will change in the future, and their despair has caused a series of suicides and self-harm in recent years.
Asylum-seekers detained in hotels - which the Australian government refers to as "alternative places of detention" - have been granted permission under a law now repealed, allowing them to be transferred from island prisons to receive medical treatment in Australia, and under this law they are transferred to Melbourne or Brisbane to receive medical care. They were then returned to their detention center abroad, but many of them said that they received little, if any, care after their transfer.
Sabanayagam, who has had a shrapnel lodged in his body since he and his family were attacked in Sri Lanka, said that the pain was sometimes so severe that he could not walk, and he said that he informed the doctors about this before leaving Manus Island, but when he finally met a doctor in Australia, while he was on guard Two security officers, all the doctor told him was that he had shrapnel in his body.
Nick Martin, Nauru’s chief medical officer responsible for identifying asylum seekers who need medical care in Australia between 2016 and 2017, says that the government is holding refugees in hotels as an example to others. “Not many of them have yet received adequate medical treatment,” Martin adds. The government sends a message that it has made a great effort in dealing with refugees and asylum seekers. "Many of them will suffer from severe mental health problems after being kept abroad for up to eight years, and then detained in these hotels."
Ineffective policy
Critics of the detention policy abroad in Australia say that it is not only inhuman, but ineffective as a deterrent. The former UN special rapporteur on the rights of migrants, Francois Crébo, believes that “what has prevented boats from reaching Australian shores is not the treatment of asylum seekers on Australian territory, but rather The Australian navy is patrolling the waters off Indonesia, stopping ships carrying migrants.
In an email last Thursday, a spokesperson for the Australian Department of Home Affairs said that the government's policy is clear, that “no one who tries to travel by boat illegally to Australia will be resettled.” The spokesman added: “Individuals residing in places of detention have been transferred. An alternative to Australia temporarily to receive medical treatment, ”he said, adding:“ They are encouraged to end their medical treatment so that they can continue on their way to resettlement in the United States, or return to Nauru, or BNG, or return to their homeland. ”
Activists believe that the decision to allow refugees to leave their places of detention in hotels came as a result of increased public and legal pressure on the government and hotels.
In December, more than 250 human rights activists and lawyers, politicians, and trade unions signed a letter to the CEO of Accor, which owns the Mantra Hotel, demanding the company terminate its contract with the government.
In mid-December, the refugees at the Mantra Hotel were transferred to the Melbourne Park Hotel, as the Mantra Hotel had a very bad reputation last year, because its administration had failed in quarantine measures for refugees.
The demonstrators gathered, on Wednesday evening, outside the Park Hotel, where they hoped to end the suffering of the refugees.
On the fifth floor was the refugee Kurdish musician, Mustafa Azimtabar, using the light of his cell phone to break through the dark windows, and he and other refugees say that they felt a glimmer of hope for the first time in many years, and Azimtabar says: “I want to walk like a human, I want to work, I want to I run, I want to breathe. ”
Azimtabar fled to Australia nearly a decade ago, and was released on Thursday.
Under strict Australian immigration policy, the government is refusing to regularize the status of anyone arriving by boat, even legal asylum seekers.
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