The asylum seekers at Djokovic's detention centre: will the tennis star fight for their freedom?

Mehdi Ali spends his days looking out as life goes on as usual on the other side of the window of his Park Hotel detention centre in the heart of Melbourne.

Mehdi came to Australia from Iran to seek asylum when he was 15 and has spent last 9 years in various detention centres in the country.

Then on January 6, this year, a day before his 24th birthday, there was a flurry of activity outside what he calls his ‘cage’.

There were news crews outside the building, large crowd of protesters had gathered but none of that was to demand freedom for Mehdi or several others who had been detained with him.

They had come for World No.1 Novak Djokovic who had been detained there after the Scott Morrison govt revoked his visa to play at the Australian Open because he couldn’t provide proof of why he had been exempted from vaccination.

Mehdi took to Twitter, like he often does, to highlight the plight of asylum seekers like him and how while there was global uproar over Djokovic being held, little has been said or done to free them. Since, the events unfolded outside his prison-hotel TV crews and newspaper reporters have come calling, but not for him.

In one his tweets he wrote that it’s sad that so many journalists have contacted him to ask him about Djokovic when he has been in a cage for 9 years.

Just before the New Year, the detainees had complained about being served food with maggots and mold but soon after Djokovic’s detention reports emerged that 20-time Grand Slam champion had been given access to gluten-free meal and exercise equipment during his detention by the Serbian authorities after he had complained about the food and asked for a personal chef.

Also watch: Czech tennis player detained with Novak Djokovic compares the detention centre with a prison

Now that the tennis star has seen the condition of the detainees, hopes of the Serb advocating their freedom have rekindled.