Amnesty welcomes Australian detention centre closures
Updated
Nauru was used to house asylum seekers as part of Australia's so-called Pacific Solution.
Amnesty International has welcomed Australia's decision to close offshore detention centres, but says the government should now scrap mandatory detention.
Amnesty's 2007 annual report criticised the Howard Government for holding asylum seekers in offshore in detention centres.
The Rudd Government has moved to scrap the so-called Pacific Solution, but mandatory detention is still in place for asylum seekers, who are now held onshore.
Refugee co-ordinator Dr Graeme Thom says even if potentially genuine refugees are still held behind razor wire, they're better off than they were.
"This farcical situation where the government was claiming that because they were in a third country they could be resettled somewhere else if found to be genuine, can no longer really exist."
Amnesty says the government needs to go further, and scrap mandatory detention altogether.
