Muristek
Prime minister, as a refugee I have done everything Australia has asked. Nine years on, why am I still in detention? | Mehdi
I came to this country at fifteen looking for help. How does keeping me locked up help to heal the trauma I have experienced?
Last week the prime minister, Scott Morrison, was asked about whether it was appropriate some refugees had been held in Melbourne’s Park Hotel for eight years after he had earlier claimed not everyone detained there is a refugee.
In his response he referenced Mehdi, a member of the persecuted Ahwazi Arab minority in his homeland Iran, who had been speaking out about the conditions after Novak Djokovic was briefly detained in the same hotel.
I didn’t make the statement that every single person was who was in that place was not a refugee. I said that was, to my understanding, the case with some people who were there. There are a number of people who were at that facility who have not been found to be owed protection.
… I’m aware of one particular individual who has been the comment of this focus of a lot of attention, who is on such a pathway, and I would be encouraging them to take up that permanent option that is available to them in the United States. We provided it, we secured it, we got it in place. And so if they wished they could go to the United States along that pathway. And that’s what we are encouraging them to do.
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