December 2022 update

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As so much has happened during the last year, we provide here an update of what we have achieved over the course of the previous 12 months:

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For well over a year, dozens of men had been held in Melbourne's Park Hotel, on the fringe of the CBD.  They were migrated there from another Melbourne hotel after being brought to Australia from Nauru and Manus Island under the short-lived "Medevac" legislation to receive medical treatment for various conditions.  Despite daily demonstrations by refugee advocates, the odd media interview with one or other of the men detained, and some completely random releases on visas for a few men here or there, their ongoing limbo appeared to be, like the majority of those in Australian immigration detention, endless. 

That changed in early January 2022 when the world's number one male tennis player, Serbian citizen Novak Djokovic, arrived in Melbourne to play in the Australian Open tournament.  A well-known anti-vaccination advocate, Djokovic claimed to have an exemption from the requirement to be vaccinated before entering Australia. His paperwork for this was deemed to be insufficient, and he was detained in the Park Hotel alongside the asylum seekers.  

HR4A started with one client at Park last year, "Don Khan", and through word of mouth amongst the men, picked up several more, including Mehdi and Adnan.  These two gentlemen are cousins and travelled to Australia at age 15 seeking safety from the hardline regime in Iran.  They had spent over a third of their young lives in immigration detention. Mehdi and Adnan became two of the faces of the campaign to draw attention to everyone whose lives have been stuck in limbo for years on end.

Crowdfunding organisation Chuffed approached HR4A offering to sponsor us in a fundraising campaign to help support our work with the men in the Park Hotel prison.  With the glare of media attention surrounding Djokovic's detention and court actions (which occurred with a speed that our clients could only dream of!), this campaign took off and helped us to raise enough funds to allow us to take on Eric, our volunteer junior lawyer, as a paid employee.

In part due to the extensive media coverage which highlighted the punitive and unsafe conditions our clients and their comrades were held in, the Park Hotel was closed as an Alternative Place of Detention (APOD), and most of the men were released into the community.  Unfortunately, there are some who were simply moved to immigration detention centres, and are still up against the system. They are bewildered that many of their friends have been granted bridging visas while they remain detained. We still have a number of clients still detained, but Don Khan, Mehdi and Adnan are finally free, and in Mehdi and Adnan's case, are now safely in the USA.  Australia is the poorer for re-deporting young men like these, but we are of course happy and relieved that they can now resume their lives in safety and peace.

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With the connection to the Park Hotel, Alison was approached to speak at the Women's Inspirational Series event at the Australian Open at the end of January 2022.  She highlighted the plight of Mehdi and Adnan and the men held in immigration detention for up to 9 years and counting, and was feted by Melbourne's Herald-Sun as a "rockstar humanitarian" (we agree!).

Ali had a number of significant speaking engagements in 2022, including an event for the Carlton Football Club in Melbourne for their Leaders of Industry evening. She spoke of our ongoing work on all fronts, and her speech was very warmly received.

Alison was also recognised in the 2022 NSW Women of the Year Awards with a Local Woman of the Year award in her local electorate of Davidson.

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Many of the young athletes that we helped to get out of Afghanistan after the fall of Kabul last year are embracing their new lives in Australia.  Several of the women's football team are based in Melbourne, and have been offered jobs in noted Melbourne restaurant, Tonka. They are also playing football again with teams in Melbourne.

The Afghan female karate champion, who escaped Afghanistan with her young family is also doing well.  They are based in Sydney, and her husband is working, the children have started school and she is studying at TAFE.

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In November, we were thrilled that one of our Invictus Games athletes was reunited with his wife and family, who managed to escape from Afghanistan. Since the athletes defected, all of their families have been at high risk of persecution by the Taliban, and we hope that in the near future, the rest will receive their visas and come to safety here.

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Moving into 2023, our focus will be on the more intractable cases of long term detainees, the plight of stateless people, and those with identity issues through no fault of their own.

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