Peter Qasim

Detainee given Baxter transfer :

"Mr Qasim has been asking for the past 18 months to be returned to India rather than spend the rest of his life in detention, but India won't allow him back."

Mr Qasim has been in detention since 1998 and is our longest serving detainee. Dick Smith invested much of his time and money trying to resolve the issues related to Mr Qasim but still Peter Qasim is in detention. He offered to go to India rather than stay in detention but India would not take him. So now he has deterioriated to the extent he has to go into Glenside mental hospital. He was assessed in December and described as having been in a parlous state. It has taken this long for anything to be done about him. This harsh and heartless treatment of people has to stop. There's not only bureaucratic bungling , there is clear evidence of not even being able to respond to urgent needs of people in dire conditions. Peter Qasim is now a persona non grata and that is what we are doing to detainees. It is hideous. Everyone deserves the right to be acknowledged. It reminds me of when I was studying psychology and they we learnt about babies dying because no one had picked them up and stroked them. Peter Qasim was just stupid enough to come to Australia. From the information we have had , he doesn't actually appear to have done anything deserving of such interminable punishment.