A stateless asylum-seeker walked free yesterday after seven years' incarceration and condemned the uncertainty he endured under Australia's mandatory detention policy.
"Detention is a very bad place because you don't know how long you will stay there," an emotional Peter Qasim told reporters. "If you stay a long time, I think you forget the world outside."
Qasim, 31, who claims to be from the Indian part of the disputed Kashmir region, has been in detention since he arrived in 1998 -- longer than any other asylum-seeker in Australia.
He couldn't be deported after his refugee claim was rejected because New Delhi doesn't consider him an Indian citizen and no country would accept him.
Qasim was given a special visa Saturday night that will allow him to live in Australia until he can be deported, Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone said.
He spent three hours strolling in the southern city of Adelaide on Sunday outside a psychiatric hospital where he is being treated for depression and has been in immigration department custody until he received his visa.
"Now I can be free and I can walk outside and I can enjoy my freedom," he said.
"I don't know what my future is now but I am happy to have a chance to live a normal life," he added.
Qasim is to talk to his doctors on Monday at the Glenside Psychiatric Hospital -- where he was admitted a month ago for treatment of a mental condition which his supporters say was caused by his years in detention -- about when he should leave. An Adelaide family has offered to take him in.
Qasim's plight has been highlighted by critics who argue that Canberra's mandatory detention policy for asylum-seekers is unjust and inhumane.
The opposition center-left Labor Party called for Qasim to be allowed to stay permanently.
"After seven years in detention for a man who, by all accounts, has done absolutely nothing wrong other than want to become an Australian, surely they can give some certainty to his life," Labor immigration spokesman Tony Burke said.
The Australian Greens, a left-wing minor opposition party, said Qasim should to be allowed to stay permanently because of the links he had already forged in the Australian community.
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