Asylum seekers who've spent years in detention on and offshore have resumed a hunger strike at the Melbourne facility where they are being held, supporters say.
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The Refugee Action Coalition says about a dozen asylum seekers brought to Australia for medical care about two years ago are part of the protest action.
The men, who are detained at the Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation (MITA) centre, stopped eating on Thursday night.
It's less than a fortnight since they ended their last hunger strike, which lasted 15 days, Refugee Action Coalition spokesman Ian Rintoul said on Friday.
The men are among a cohort known as the medevac detainees - asylum seekers who were moved from Australia's offshore detention centres in Nauru and Papua New Guinea and brought to mainland for medical care.
The federal government quietly released many medevac detainees between December last year and February this year but those releases have stopped.
The government has never explained why some were released on bridging visas and not others.
"The Medevac refugees have been the victims of offshore detention, and are now just pawns in the government's political games," Mr Rintoul said.
"There is no explanation for why half should have been released and half are still in detention. After eight years, they are running out of hope."
A protest is planned outside Brisbane's version of MITA on Sunday.
It will mark the ninth anniversary of former Labor prime minister Kevin Rudd declaring that "asylum seekers who come here by boat without a visa will never be settled in Australia''.
Members of the Refugee Solidarity Meanjin movement will gather outside the Brisbane Immigration Transit Accommodation (BITA) from midday on Sunday in support of those still detained by Australia.
Australian Associated Press
