Australia was Mano Yogalingam’s place in the world, but he could never call it home.
A Christian Tamil from Sri Lanka’s west coast, he arrived by boat in Australia in 2013 as a 12-year-old boy with his parents and four siblings, having fled alleged military persecution in the postwar upheaval of his home country.
After more than a year in detention, he was granted a temporary visa. He went to school in Melbourne, he made friends, he built a life and a place in his community. But he was never allowed to feel settled and at home.
For more than a decade, Mano lived with the constant uncertainty of a temporary visa; with the acknowledged unfairness of the flawed “fast-track” process; with the ever-present threat that he would be returned to a homeland he had only known as a child.
Yogalingam was a key organiser of the 49-day protest outside the office of the Department of Home Affairs in Melbourne, a movement seeking federal government intervention for the 7,350 asylum seekers caught up in the former government’s discredited fast-track asylum process.
The previous Coalition government set up the fast-track system to process a backlog of asylum applications from people who arrived by boat between mid-2012 and the end of 2013. The accelerated system stripped appeal rights and procedural fairness from applicants, and fast-track decisions were later overturned by the courts as unreasonable. Those affected by fast-track were put on temporary bridging visas, with limited rights, while their applications were processed.
The current government abolished the system and allowed those affected by the process to apply for permanent residency, but it upheld rejections under the previous scheme, leaving thousands of people like Yogalingam in limbo.
After alleged neo-Nazis attacked the protest site in Melbourne’s city centre, Yogalingam volunteered as an overnight guard, keeping vigil while others slept.
After keeping watch over the protesters on Sunday night, he left the camp late on Monday morning.
On Tuesday evening, Yogalingam set himself alight. He died in hospital the next day, suffering from catastrophic burns to more than 80% of his body.
Friends said Mano, 23 years old and “with his whole life in front of him”, was struggling, his mental health declining and then collapsing under the wearing strain of visa uncertainty.
“The psychological torment inflicted by the Australian government’s cruel and inhumane policies, compounded by personal challenges, drove him to a point where he believed he had nothing left to live for,” said his friend Rathy Barthlote, who was by Yogalingam’s side at the hospital when he died.
“We have seen countless refugees lose their lives while waiting for permanent visas.
“Now, we mourn the loss of another young man who, like so many other young Tamils on bridging visas, woke up every day wondering if it would be the day he’d be forced to return to the persecution he fled.”
Aran Mylvaganam from the Tamil Refugee Council said many caught in this visa limbo had built deep roots in the country, including having Australian-born children, completing their educations in Australia and building careers.
Mylvaganam argued that connection to the Australian community should be recognised – as it was with the Nadesalingam family from Biloela – with the granting of permanent visas.
“Labor acknowledged while in opposition that the fast-track process was flawed, that it was unfair. But they have been in government for more than two years and they haven’t done anything to help the victims of that process.
“We want them to bring an end to this uncertainty.”
The director of advocacy and campaigns at the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, Jana Favero, said the complexity of the visa system had “inflicted cruelty on people”.
“Not only is the trauma of the system impacting people, but they’re then effectively abandoned by the government and are in the community without any support, except for community supports or charities.”
“The architecture of the whole system has inflicted cruelty on people.”
She said it was “confusing” to see Labor stand by decisions made under the fast-track process – a system they dismantled upon winning government.
“That is what has left all these people in limbo. It doesn’t make any sense. How you can say this system has failed so much so that we’re going to abolish it, yet we will stand by the decisions made by that system?
“All of these people have been failed by the system. It’s a total cobweb of cruelty.”
‘We live on edge the whole time’
The protests were initially about the refugees caught in the fast-track system but have broadened to cover those who arrived before 2012 but are facing similar conditions.
Abdul-Hossein Hardani is another caught in the cobweb.
Hardani has been desperately seeking permanent residency for 13 years and the ordeal has broken him.
“My hand does not stop shaking,” he said. “I am sick, a lot of us are very sick. There is so much pressure. We live on edge the whole time, without family, without Medicare, without any help. No one helps us.”
Hardani fled persecution in Iran in 2011. He came to Australia by boat but has found life extremely difficult under the temporary visa he is on.
“No one is listening, and that is why we are here. There are so many kids here, so many families, and we didn’t do anything wrong. We work hard just like everyone else, so why do we have to suffer?” he said.
Hardani is among the hundreds of protesters holding a 24/7 vigil outside the office of the immigration minister, Tony Burke, in Punchbowl in Sydney’s west. There are dual protests under way in Sydney and Melbourne.
Between 300 and 700 refugees take part every day in the protest at Punchbowl. Some sleep outside the office. All say they arrived by boat before 2012 and all are caught in a bureaucratic web, stuck on temporary visas.
They carry signs and make a huge racket with drums, speakers and megaphones multiple times a day. They are demanding the minister intervenes to lift them out of limbo.
Many, like Sowriya Vishmuvarman, came to Australia as a child, but cannot continue their education after school due to their visa restrictions.
“I finished high school last year, and I tried to study psychology at uni but immigration called me and said I couldn’t continue my studies, and that if I wanted to continue, I’d have to pay [as an international student].
“It just makes me feel like I don’t belong here, even though I grew up here. I came here at the age of seven, I have spent most of my life here. I shouldn’t be punished just because I don’t have permanent residency.”
The group of 7,350 people were excluded from the government’s attempts to unwind the fast-track system, left stranded on temporary protection visas or safe haven enterprise visas.
They’re left in a kind of visa limbo, living for years on temporary visas.
Those affected don’t have access to Medicare, Centrelink, Hecs or many other services. Some don’t have rights to work and have been scrambling to stay financially afloat for over a decade.
“It means we can’t love as well,” said Mohammad Shovik Islam, a refugee from Bangladesh.
“We can’t fall in love and get married because everyone thinks we just want to get married to get a permanent visa. But it means we stay single and alone, it’s not fair.”
Islam is a business owner, like many who protest. He is able to work but not much else. He described a life of isolation and loneliness and said his mental health has been driven right to “the edge.”
“I actually pay taxes. I even pay a Medicare levy but don’t have access to Medicare. Why? All I did was seek a better life here.”
Abbas Salapoor, who escaped persecution in Iran in 2012, said he suffers from “very bad” depression and “I take pills for that”.
“In fact, everyone here takes pills for depression and anxiety, wouldn’t you?
“I’ve lost my future, waiting here, I have lost everything. I don’t feel safe or peaceful here and I cannot enjoy any part of life, being stuck like this.”
They keep waiting. And the protests continue.
The minister for immigration was contacted for comment.
• In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counsellor. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
