A baby at the center of an asylum row in Australia has been released from hospital into community detention. But the government says baby Asha will be sent to a camp on Nauru Island once she is well.
Doctors refused to discharge the one-year-old, who was being treated for serious burns, unless she was provided a “suitable home environment”, BBC reported.
The standoff sparked protests outside Brisbane’s Lady Cilento Hospital in support of the doctors.
Asha will now stay with her family, including her mother, in community detention. An immigration officer will monitor the family and their movements will be restricted.
Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said she would be sent to the offshore processing center on Nauru once her medical and legal problems surrounding the circumstances of her injury were solved.
“We are not going to allow people smugglers to get out a message that if you seek assistance in an Australian hospital, that somehow that is your formula to becoming an Australian citizen,” he told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
“I couldn’t be any clearer: once the medical assistance has been provided and the legal issues resolved, people will go back to Nauru.”
Dutton denied the move was prompted by the protests and said it was preplanned.
But refugee advocates hailed baby Asha’s release into the community as a victory against the government’s hardline detention policy.
In early February, the High Court upheld Australia’s asylum policy as legal under the country’s constitution. The ruling paved the way for around 267 people, including 37 babies, to be deported to Nauru.
