Member-only story
Djokovic’s Detention
The tennis player’s stay at Melbourne’s immigration detention centre highlights the poor treatment of asylum seekers
This week, Djokovic has been staying in Park Hotel — the infamous immigration detention centre in Melbourne — as he awaits a decision on his visa after failing entry requirements. However, his stay has highlighted the cases of the other residents of Park Hotel, some of whom have been held there for nine years.
It's well known that Australia’s treatment of refugees and asylum seekers is inhumane: Behrouz Boochani’s descriptions of the Manus Island detention centre in his book ‘No Friend But The Mountains’ made for uncomfortable reading. However, it is not just Australia that makes life needlessly difficult for those seeking out a better life: it is most if not all of the Western world. This needs to change.
Towards the end of 2018, I spent a week with MedVint, a small charity that provides medical aid to refugees on the migrant trail through Europe. Every day, hundreds of refugees and migrants filled the parking lot of Sarajevo train station to receive a free meal, access to showers for scabies…
