“I am still in limbo because I have no future yet. I don’t know what’s going to happen,' says Farhad Bandesh. | _biancah
One year ago, a lock turned and Farhad Bandesh walked through the open gates of a Melbourne detention centre.“I am still in limbo because I have no future yet,” he toldMr Bandesh – a Kurdish musician, artist, jewellery maker and aspiring winemaker – had been detained by Australia for 7½ years: at Christmas Island, Manus Island, Port Moresby and Melbourne – first at the Mantra hotel in Preston, and then at Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation in Broadmeadows.
Since December 2020, according to the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, 192 people who had been evacuated to Australia and then detained have been released into the community on bridging visas. Another 70 remain detained in motels and other facilities, in conditions the Australian Human Rights Commission has described as more restrictive than detention centres and inappropriate for prolonged detention.
The department has not updated its “monthly” detention statistics since August, when 11,630 people who had arrived in Australia by boat were living in the community on temporary visas and 114 people were held in alternative places of accommodation across the country.Farhad Bandesh celebrating his 40th birthday with friends at home in Melbourne.The figures show a gradual shift in practice, if not policy, by the government.
Earlier this year, he worked at Mac Forbes Winery in the Yarra Valley, helping to create a shiraz called Time To Fly and a cabernet sauvignon called Game Over, a nod to Amnesty International’s campaign to end offshore detention, for which former Socceroo and human rights activist Craig Foster is ambassador.Watching him walk free, Foster said, was a profound experience.
Asylum Seeker Resource Centre director of advocacy and campaigns Jana Favero said the other medical evacuees should also be released and provided with a clear pathway to permanent resettlement.
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