http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=27986A new visa classification announced by the Australian government, which will free a small number of detainees, does little to improve the country’s harsh immigration and detention policies, say human rights and refugee support groups. On Wednesday afternoon the Minister for Immigration Amanda Vanstone announced that the government had decided to create a new ”removal pending visa” to free those who have relinquished pursuing further legal appeals and have agreed to go home, but who cannot be safely deported. According to Vanstone this visa will ”only be granted to a relatively small number of detainees” amongst the over 1,000 currently imprisoned. While one man has been held for over six years another 180 have been imprisoned for over three years. Kate Gauthier, national coordinator for A Just Australia group said that the new visas would apply to ”those who the government cannot deport and not to those the government should not deport”. ”It is tinkering around the edges. It is misleading for the government to claim this is about long term detainees, its not,” she told IPS. ”While there were Australians who were initially prepared to support the government’s arguments for detention it is now clear that a majority of Australians want those detained treated justly.” Greens Senator Bob Brown said the visa will simply leave those released in a cruel limbo. ”This is a no hope visa,” he said. ”This means that you have no hope of staying in Australia, you’re going to be allowed out but you renounce all legal right to fight to stay here. Added Brown: ”It means that if there’s future legislation which would change circumstances, you’ve signed away your legal right to stay here even under those circumstances.” Ironically, Australia’s longest serving detainee Peter Qasim, who has been in detention for almost seven years, will for unspecified reasons not qualify for the new visa. Qasim, an asylum seeker from Kashmir has been imprisoned since September 1998. Last year he stated that he was willing to return to the disputed Himalayan province of Kashmir but India has resisted. Also since no other government will accept him, he has been classed as a ”stateless person”. In August 2004, the High Court of Australia upheld government legislation on mandatory detention and deemed it legal for Qasim to be imprisoned for the rest of his life. When announcing the new policy changes Vanstone confirmed that Qasim would not qualify for one of the new visas. A further 48 adults and six children remain stranded on an Australian government funded prison on the Pacific island of Nauru where they have been held since December 2001, following the implementation of Australia’s naval blockade of boats carrying asylum seekers landing on Australia’s northern shores. Vanstone said the new visa would not be available to those held there. Nor is the limited change announced by Vanstone likely to satisfy the concerns of a coalition of backbench members opposing the policy of indeterminate detention and the denial of access to public services to approximately 9,500 people who have been accepted as valid refugees but granted only a three-year temporary ‘protection’ visa. Some others – including the conservative Christian political party Family First that will take up a seat in the Senate on Jul. 1 – have backed the release of up to 30 mostly Iranians who have converted to Christianity while in detention. Family First’s concern followed the deportation to Iran in October 2004 of one convert who was subsequently detained for questioning by authorities for 48 hours and then charged with illegally leaving the country. Some conservative rural members have also advocated granting permanent residency to many of those on ‘protection visas’. Many of these visa holders have taken up jobs in regional towns where businesses such as orchards and meat processing plants find it difficult to attract and keep workers. Amnesty International Australia has criticised the government’s approach as a minor ”quick fix” and is calling for a complete policy overhaul that it brands as ”illegal”. Graham Thom, the rights group’s refugee coordinator, called the policy of imprisoning asylum seekers ”appalling” and urged the government to change Australia’s Migration Act ”to prohibit the mandatory, arbitrary and indefinite detention of refugees and asylum seekers.” Last year, in response to lobbying by conservative rural members of the government, the government dropped the requirement that those on temporary protection visas could only renew them from outside the country. Earlier this year the government faced widespread criticism after it was revealed that a mentally ill Australian resident, Cornelia Rau, had been held in an immigration prison after insisting that she was a German citizen. However the announced changes will do nothing to quell ongoing community and international opposition to the policy of imprisoning children or the three-year temporary protection visas that keep asylum seekers in limbo. Two weeks ago the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination was briefed by Australian officials on progress in meeting its obligations under conventions aimed at preventing racial discrimination. In its concluding observations the committee expressed its concern about the mandatory detention of illegal migrants, including asylum-seekers, ”in particular when such detention affects women, children, unaccompanied minors, and those who are considered stateless”. The U.N. committee also expressed strong concern ”that many persons have been in such administrative detention for over three years”. While it was Vanstone who faced the press Wednesday to explain the latest minor concession, Prime Minister John Howard has vehemently backed his hard line policy.