13 Jun 2023

Protesters want refugee free from oppressive AUS detention

From , 6:02 am on 13 June 2023
People hold up placards during a pro-refugee rights protest in Melbourne on June 13, 2020 as several asylum seekers who were evacuated for medical reasons from offshore detention centres on Nauru and Manus Island, look down from the hotel where they have been detained.

People hold up placards during a pro-refugee rights protest in Melbourne on June 13, 2020 as several asylum seekers who were evacuated for medical reasons from offshore detention centres on Nauru and Manus Island, look down from the hotel where they have been detained. Photo: AFP / William West

"New Zealand government, save me from the cruel and inhumane clutches of Australian politicians," 
- that is the message Iranian refugee Hamid told RNZ, who was held in Nauru for almost a decade. 

Hamid is one of hundreds of refugees who had sought asylum in Australia but was detained offshore. 

He was brought to Australia in February 2023 for medical treatment and then kept in a hotel room in Brisbane. 

Australian protestors gathered outside the Brisbane detention centre calling for the freedom of Hamid, who had been held in a hotel and then the centre for months.

Hamid told RNZ Pacific's Lydia Lewis after almost nine years held offshore in Nauru he feels like the government of Australia is slowly killing him.