Ahmed was not quite 11 years old when his family arrived in Australia seeking asylum. Placed in immigration detention, his mental health deteriorated alarmingly. Ahmed tried to hang himself twice in seven months and committed many acts of self-harm. After three long years Ahmed and his family were finally recognized as refugees and released.

This is just one of the stories contained in AI's June 2005 report, The impact of indefinite detention: The case to change Australia's mandatory detention regime (ASA 12/001/2005). There are hundreds more stories which could be told of lives blighted, sometimes irredeemably, by Australia's mandatory detention regime.

AI estimates that as at 29 May 2005, 210 people detained in Australian immigration facilities (including the offshore centre on the South Pacific island of Nauru) had been there for over 18 months. The longest serving detainee at that time was Peter Qasim, a rejected Kashmiri asylum-seeker who had been held since September 1998. Australian law requires that a non-national in Australia without a valid visa must be detained until he or she is either granted a temporary protection visa or leaves the country. Rejected asylum-seekers such as Peter Qasim, who cannot leave Australia because no country will accept him as a national or allow him entry, face being detained indefinitely.

Since the report was finalized, Peter Qasim's situation has improved slightly. He has been granted a Removal Pending Bridging Visa which allows a non-national in immigration detention to be released when it is not possible to remove them from Australia. To be eligible for this visa the visa holder must agree to leave the country when the Australian government requires them to do so.

Peter Qasim is now being treated for mental illness caused by his prolonged detention, but the uncertainty of his present situation only adds to his stress and does little to aid his recovery.

Australia's mandatory detention regime places it in breach of several of the inter-national human rights treaties which it has signed up to, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. In June the Australian Prime Minister announced several changes to the detention regime, intended to soften its edges without altering the fundamental policy.

While the changes are a step in the right direction, they have not adequately addressed the key recommendations made in AI's report. Unless further changes are made asylum-seekers who arrive without a valid visa will continue to be automatically detained in contravention of Australia's obligations under international human rights and refugee law. They will continue to be held without an assessment of whether their detention is necessary and proportionate, and without access to review by an independent body able to order a release.

The only safeguard against indefinite detention will be the Minister for Immigration's discretion - which she cannot be forced to use. And any alternative to indefinite detention for rejected asylum-seekers who cannot be returned will also be at the Minister's discretion.

Kept in limbo and unable ever to apply for permanent residence, Peter Qasim faces a lifetime of being in Australia but never being part of its community.