While the dramatic uplift was taking place at Kabul Airport, the last family of refugees in the Darwin Airport compound was released from detention last Sunday . The above organisation issued the following statement:
On Saturday we had our last day at the fence (of the Mercure compound ) . On Sunday morning, after 203 days of standing vigil, we celebrated the release of the last family from detention in Darwin. And today we had the welcome news that our friends Afsaneh, Mojtaba and Benham, who were transferred to MITA, a detention centre in Melbourne, two weeks ago, will also be released to community detention while they wait for their visas to the USA.
But our fight for justice is not over.
Because although both these families were released from locked detention, they remain in community detention where their freedom is still limited by the government unnecessarily and have received no news of permanent resettlement. And Afsaneh’s brother, Hamed, who has been detained at MITA since 27 November 2018, has NOT been released into community detention in Brisbane with the rest of his family. This family is once again being ripped apart.
We will continue to fight for the Seraj/Khademi family to be reunited within the community, and for permanent protection for this family, for the Maghames family, and for ALL refugees. We will continue to fight for them to be free and have certainty over their future.
We are also fighting for the more than 100 refugees still in Nauru. Including Parmika and Kiru, who returned to Nauru in March because the the conditions of detention in Darwin were unbearable.
We are fighting for the more than 100 medevac refugees who remain in detention facilities around Australia. And we are fighting to end the Australian government’s cruel policy of indefinite detention.
