All remaining refugee and asylum seekers detained at the Park Hotel in Carlton in Melbourne’s inner suburbs will be released.
Eight men were released on Thursday from the makeshift detention centre after they were medically evacuated to Melbourne from Nauru and Papua New Guinea.
Some have been detained by Australia for nine years.
Around 20 refugees wxjmtzywere released from onshore detention on Thursday including eight from Park Hotel, six from the Brisbane Immigration Transit Authority (ITA), three from Melbourne ITA and one from Villawood who was the last woman in offshore detention.
Human rights activist and detained refugee Thanush Selvarasa called it “wonderful news” that so many of his friends were released.
“We have been waiting day by day for the last nine years to join the community, you cannot imagine how happy this makes me,” he said.
“This is a victory not just for us but for all those who fought for our freedom.”
But Mr Selvarasa is concerned that they are being released on bridging visas.
“My friends being released is great news, but this is the beginning, we need permanent protection visas, we cannot rebuild our life on a temporary visa,” he said.
They are sentiments shared by Refugee Action Coalition spokesperson Ian Rintoul.
“They’re being released on bridging visas, which puts an extraordinary strain on them. They’re expected to work and support themselves in situations we’re they’ve not got medical treatment and where their physical and mental health have deteriorated while they’ve been in detention,” Mr Rintoul said.
“We need people being released on permanent visas so they can re-establish their lives in Australia.”
Mr Rintoul also said the government has lacked transparency in its decision making and there is no reason 10 people should still be in detention.
“The decisions from the government are completely capricious and arbitrary, they defy any kind of explanation. We’ve never been able to get any explanation from the government as to why they didn’t live up to their promise to release the people who were brought here,” he said.
“Nothing distinguishes the 10 who are still being held in detention from the 20-odd who were released today.”
Refugee Mehdi Ali spent nine years in Australia’s detention system after arriving by boat with his cousin Adnan Choopani in 2013.
He spent his final years of detention at the Park Hotel.
Mehdi celebrated the news on Twitter from his new home in the US, where he resettled a month ago as part of the US agreement to take some refugees from Australian-run detention on Manus Island and Nauru, struck with Barack Obama in 2016.
Kurdish refugee Mostafa “Moz” Azimitabar was released from the Park Hotel last January after eight years detained by Australia.
“These hotels should never again be used to detain us,” he wrote on Twitter.
The Park Hotel was exposed as a makeshift detention centre earlier this year when Serbian tennis champion Novak Djokovic was detained there before being deported.
