‘Speak Up’: Australian refugees urge Djokovic to help them | Issues of Human Rights

World-renowned footballer Novak Djokovic is in jail for three days on Saturday in an Australian immigrant camp after being found. visa revoked arrived in the country on Wednesday.

The athlete said he received the COVID vaccine before leaving for Australia. But the Australian Border Force barred him from entering, saying he “failed to provide sufficient evidence to meet entry requirements”.

As a result, Djokovic has been detained at Melbourne’s Park Hotel, also known as the Alternative Place of Detention (APOD) for refugees and asylum seekers. known as COVID-19-affected areas among long-term residents.

Many of the hotel’s refugees have been detained for almost three years, permanently denied visas to Australia for arriving in the country by boat.

Amid the turmoil involving a senior tennis player who is not allowed to receive the COVID vaccine and incarcerated, refugees and asylum seekers have found that no one can confirm their plight. He encourages Djokovic to rent his famous space to highlight his status and to promote his rights.

“These are [the] a time when the world can see how we are being treated, “said Jamal, a refugee and prisoner at the Park Hotel for a year.

Amin Afravi, another refugee living in a detention center in Brisbane, said Djokovic had the opportunity to help the refugees fight for their rights.

“My message to him is to speak … and to encourage other people, other countries, his country and all journalists. [outlets] that… keep talking to us, ”said Amin, an Iranian Arab refugee from Iran.

‘It is persecution for us’

It was in 2013, when the Australian government formed its first alliance with its South Pacific neighbors, Nauru is Papua New Guinea, to arrest asylum seekers who arrived at the boat. The treaty also prohibits refugees from permanently residing in Australia.

Six years after the treaty, most of the internally displaced persons were relocated to Australia and detained in prisons around the country, including Melbourne and Brisbane, to this day.

One such refugee is Ismail Hussein, who was locked up in a “cell” at Melbourne’s Park Hotel. In an interview with Al Jazeera, he described his problems inside the hotel last year.

“We are locked in a room. I can say 24 hours a day. 24 hours a day [in] room, which has no windows, ”he said.

Worse, he said, “not having the freedom to travel”.

“You can see through the window. People go on with their lives… and it hurts us. It hurts us,” he said. “You know, what we want is what ordinary people do. But without a doubt it has been cut off for nine years. ”

According to Hussein, the food is “bad” and “unhealthy”.

“Sometimes there [are] worms, sometimes there [are] other insects, ”he said. “Sometimes it smells bad. And, of course, several times it did open our stomachs and stomachs. ”

A photo posted at Al Jazeera by one of the residents of the Park Hotel shows insects and worms on their food. [Photo supplied to Al Jazeera by a refugee resident]

Jamal, a refugee who also lives in the Park Hotel, said that the only part of the house that has an open space is a smoking area, “which harms our body, so we are locked inside the walls” of the house.

“The hotel smells good, [sometimes] the smell is so bad you can’t breathe, ”Al Jazeera wrote in a statement. “I understand [suffocated] I can’t breathe. I have nightmares about being in prison and in security. ”

As a result of the “eternal” nature of the prison, “each of us” began to “suffer from depression, anxiety, self-harm, destruction,” said Jamal, who asked Al Jazeera to identify himself by his first name.

‘Uncertainty kills us’

Even before reaching the hotel, refugees are already being harassed, according to Alison Battisson, Human Rights for All director. They represent the many refugees in the Park Hotel.

“[They’re] in an obscure car with black windows … this is how they all arrive at the Park [Hotel]. They arrive without any goods or services, and often without any means of communication, “he told Al Jazeera.

“Doubt is what kills us,” Hussein, a resident of the Park Hotel, said. “We do not know how long we will have to wait.”

“Sometimes I could not distinguish between the day and the night. Just lying in bed. ”

People are looking at a state prison where Serbian tennis expert Novak Djokovic is said to be living in Melbourne, Australia after announcing his cancellation of a visa to Djokovic. [Con Chronis/AFP]

In October last year, COVID stormed the hotel, infecting more than half of the refugees inside.

When Hussein contracted the virus, he said it was “the happiest day of all the years”.

“Because I was thinking, there is a reason I could die without injuring myself,” she said.

“The problem, that’s how I hate this place, that’s how I hate myself. I just wanted the pain to stop, and I didn’t want to hurt myself. ”

‘Cruelty, slow death’

Suffering does not end with the Park Hotel. About 60 refugees have been deported to Australia by Jamal and Hussein living in confined spaces throughout the country.

Amin, a refugee detained in Brisbane, described Al Jazeera as “a cruel, torture-stricken, death-defying man.” [a] slow death “.

“You do not know your future, you do not know how long you will be in prison, and no one will answer your questions,” he explained. “You think every day: what did you do wrong?”

“It’s frustrating,” he said as he pleaded with Djokovic to help him.

The existing grievances over Djokovic’s case, however, have outweighed the concerns of the refugees, singer and refugee facilitator Dawn Barrington said.

Shameless, useless + criticism, opportunistic, cruel, vain and foolish.
As in all refugee camps. #auspol https://t.co/Lj3gnjlHNg

– Human Rights for All (@ HumanRights4A) January 6, 2022

From Thursday, when Djokovic was taken to the Park Hotel, a crowd who mocked him for his imprisonment, a Serbian witch doctor made a “luw” and said that our guerrillas would call him a “prisoner” in Australia.

“It contains verbal and international news as well as foreign news,” Barrington told Al Jazeera. “However, keeping people indiscriminately and depriving them of all their rights, including children, for a long time has not been a big deal.”

Barrington reportedly asked the Australian government what the refugee policy was.

Battisson, of Human Rights For All, said Djokovic’s dispute was “a good opportunity” for the Australian government to “establish and establish a system of incarceration and incarceration”.

One that does not cost billions of dollars every year, blocking innocent people in Australia, and many refugees trying to leave Australia for a safer third country.

But for most of the refugees in the Australian refugee prison, the time is fast approaching.

Hussein said he suffered from post-traumatic stress, anxiety and insomnia due to long prison terms. He has also been physically assaulted, he said.

“Now I have a problem with high blood pressure. I have diabetes, and I have a liver problem. There are things I have to have for the rest of my life [that] I never had it before. ”

He appealed to the Australian government to “let us go, before it is too late”.

“We’re at the end of the line. We can no longer refuse. We cannot continue. We are very tired. Let us be free. ”