In a landmark decision, Australia’s High Court has ruled that indefinite immigration detention is unlawful–overturning a previous decision from 2004. The case concerned a stateless Rohingya man who faced the prospect of lifelong detention as no country would resettle him. […]
Australia: Covid-19 and Detention
On 7 October, Australia’s Commonwealth Ombudsman (CO) and Human Rights Commissioner (HRC) published a joint statement expressing concern regarding the country’s use of hotels for detaining refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers–in some cases for years on end. Drawing on observations gathered by the Office of the Commonwealth Ombudsman in its role as Australia’s National Preventive […]
Australia: Covid-19 and Detention
On 18 October 2021, refugees and asylum seekers detained at Melbourne’s Park Hotel held a protest against their detention at the hotel during a COVID-19 outbreak. The detained decried their shared sleeping quarters, cramped eating and recreation spaces, and the fact that many of them are medically vulnerable. Three positive cases had been confirmed and […]
Australia: Covid-19 and Detention
Previously one of the countries in the world least affected by COVID-19, Australia has been struggling to contain outbreaks of the highly infectious Delta variant across the country over recent months. The States of New South Wales, Victoria and Canberra have all experienced extended periods of lockdown over the past weeks. Immigration detention centres have […]
Australia: Covid-19 and Detention
As COVID-19 cases rise again in areas of Australia – including New South Wales – prompting fresh lockdowns, a new report from the Australian Human Rights Commission has highlighted the serious risks that COVID-19 poses to people in the country’s immigration detention network. Although no immigration detainees have, to-date, tested positive in the country (although […]
Australia: Covid-19 and Detention
After more than a year of detention inside Melbourne hotels, 65 medically vulnerable male asylum seekers have been released. Previously confined in offshore detention facilities, the men were transferred to mainland Australia in 2019 under the now-repealed Medevac laws, so that they could receive urgent medical treatment. Since their arrival however, they have been held […]
Australia: Covid-19 and Detention
Despite recommendations from infectious disease experts, medical professionals, civil society, and international human rights observers to reduce detainee populations (see 26 April update), the numbers of non-nationals detained in Australia have increased during the pandemic. This is according to the country’s Commonwealth Ombudsman, Michael Manthorpe, who warned, “There is a risk that upward pressure on […]
Australia: Covid-19 and Detention
Despite growing calls from a broad range of actors – including civil society, medical professionals, infectious disease experts, Australia’s Human Rights Commissioner, and detainees themselves–the Australian government had still not taken steps to release vulnerable detainees as of late April. The government has acknowledged that those in correctional and detention settings are most at risk. […]
Australia: Covid-19 and Detention
1,100 Australian healthcare professionals have co-signed a letter to the Home Affairs Minister, Peter Dutton, calling for all refugees and asylum seekers to immediately be released from immigration detention. “Failure to take action to release people seeking asylum and refugees from detention will not only put them at greater risk of infection and possibly death,” […]
Australia: Covid-19 and Detention
Numerous civil society organizations have issued calls for the release of immigration detainees in Australia, which took on new urgency after a private security guard at an ad hoc detention center in a hotel in Brisbane tested positive for Covid-19 in mid-March. On 23 March, asylum seekers in detention across Australia wrote an open letter […]
