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Muhammad, whose name has been changed to protect his identity, said being held in immigration detention on Christmas Island was the worst experience of his life.
He’s still traumatised by the experience and says even when he finally arrived in Australia after years in detention, he’s not being treated with respect.
He spent his first six years in detention after being detained on arrival after escaping Pakistan by boat.
He told SBS News he lived out the most traumatic years of his life on Christmas Island.

He expressed feeling as though he was treated like a dangerous criminal, despite having never broken the law. This experience, he described, was “very humiliating.”

“Ten to 13 years people stay in Australian immigration detention. And then on the other hand, there is Australian people who did armed robbery, assault on people, and even second-degree killed and they’re released five to eight years,” Muhammad said.
“It really breaks my heart and somehow I feel like we still don’t have that justice.”
He said one of the most difficult things to deal with psychologically was the constant uncertainty.
“Immigration and Border Force … they transfer me mostly everywhere in Australia, like from Darwin to Perth, then to Christmas Island, then to Melbourne. This journey, you never know where you will be,” he said.
Muhammad was denied the chance to study, and he also said he recalls being forced to eat food that had expired by up to seven months.

“But once I arrived in Australia, I observed that dogs here receive more respect than humans… I wish I were a dog in Australia so I could at least be treated with dignity,” he remarked.

This week, a United Nations working group on arbitrary detention embarked on a 12-day mission to evaluate Australia’s detention practices. Their review includes examining prisons, police stations, and facilities for juveniles, migrants, and individuals with psychosocial disabilities.

For people like Muhammad, Australia’s immigration detention regime facing United Nations scrutiny is a welcome development.

“These decisions rest in the hands of government officials. One of the key issues highlighted in the submission is the need for a better, fairer, and more independent system. Such a system would increase our confidence that individuals are not being detained unlawfully,” she stated.

The alleged mistreatment at detention facilities has sparked renewed calls from a national coalition of legal, academic and advocacy organisations for Australia to overhaul its detention scheme. The issue has been well documented by UN bodies and human rights organisations in Australia and overseas.
Refugee Advice & Casework Service (RACS) centre director and principal solicitor Sarah Dale is a contributor to the joint submission.
“Australia is one of the very few countries, if the only country in the world, that mandates detention on arrival for unlawful non-citizens. So, that principle of mandatory detention is one that we have long stood against,” she told SBS News.
“We are deeply concerned by the securitisation of immigration detention … and they are two key things that constantly sit as a concern for RACS.”
Madeline Gleeson, another contributor from the Andrew & Renata Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, said for her organisation, concerns start at the decision to detain.

“In Australia, however, detention is automatically imposed on all unlawful non-citizens,” noted Gleeson.

International law allows deprivation of liberty only as a last resort after all viable alternatives have been considered, and only when detention is reasonable, necessary and proportionate to a legitimate purpose.

“Yet in Australia, detention is automatic for all unlawful non-citizens,” Gleeson said.

Visit comes after High Court’s decision criticisms

The working group’s visit to the country comes after the ongoing fallout from the High Court’s NZYQ decision.
In 2023, the court ruled indefinite immigration detention is unlawful when there is no real prospect of removing a person from Australia in the reasonably foreseeable future.
The judgment led to the release of around 140 people, including some convicted criminals. The government has since made a secretive $400 million deal to resettle them in Nauru.
But it also prompted new legislation tightening visa conditions and enabling preventative detention orders in limited cases.
Human Rights For All director and principal Alison Battison addressed the working group in Geneva last year.
“People who have committed no crime in relation to their visa or immigration status are warehoused in what effectively are prisons for an unknown period of time,” she told SBS News.

“What occurs at the moment is that on a monthly basis, a case manager looks at a person’s file like a desktop review, doesn’t actually read any documents, and then determines with a very basic checklist whether a person’s detention is lawful or not.”

When asked about its offshore detention program, a spokesperson for the Department of Home Affairs recently told SBS News in a statement: “The Australian government is committed to resolving the transitory persons caseload temporarily in Australia through third country migration outcomes and continues to work with resettlement partners to identify resettlement opportunities.”
Gleeson said mechanisms for reform already exist.
“They just need the law that gives them the ability to make those decisions.
“We also have bodies such as the Commonwealth Ombudsman and the Australian Human Rights Commission, which have long histories of overseeing immigration detention.”
She said if these were properly resourced, they could “play an important role in ensuring detention is not arbitrary or unlawful”.

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