24 Oct 2013

Amnesty says refugees are being detained arbitrarily in Nauru

6:15 pm on 24 October 2013

Amnesty International has accused the Australian government of arbitrarily detaining refugees in Nauru.

Amnesty's refugee spokesperson, Graeme McGregor, says asylum seekers who were recognised as refugees at the Nauru processing centre months ago are still being held.

Mr McGregor says the reason why they have not been released is uncertain, as is the number of refugees concerned.

He says this undermines the whole process of having asylum seekers processed in the first place.

"The Australian government throughout this process, whether it's the current coalition government or the previous Labor government, has always tried to maintain that detention of aslyum seekers is only being carried out while they're being processed and while that assessment of their refugee status is being carried out. And really, issues like this really just demonstrate that that's simply not the case."

Graeme McGregor says Nauru never agreed to re-settle the refugees, and Australia's policies do not allow them to be settled there - so they refugees have been left in limbo.