‘Never given a chance’: freed asylum seekers lament lost decade in immigration detention

Several Bangladeshi asylum seekers have been released from Yongah Hill, in Western Australia, on temporary six-month visas. Photograph: Rebecca Lemay/AAP

At least eight Bangladeshi asylum seekers have been released from immigration detention in Australia after languishing there for a decade, in a move that signals the Albanese government is winding back arbitrary detention, according to a lawyer for some of the men.

But while their release has given them hope, the men have spoken out about the terrible toll of the lengthy period of indefinite detention.