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Amnesty International NZ's executive director Meg De Ronde told Checkpoint it's a huge relief to have the deal for 450 refugees to come here from detention in Australia and offshore centres.
"Amnesty International found what Australia was doing amounted to torture under international human rights law and standards. Their offshore processing as abhorrent.
"Australia can't be allowed to get away with the way it's treated these people. International pressure has to continue, UNHCR has to continue pressure on Australia to prevent this from continuing. Nauru must be closed. And their insistence on opposing the refugee conventions principles has to continually be called out.
"These are people that were fleeing war and persecution in other countries... When we're looking at the outpouring of support for people in Ukraine at the moment. Many of the men and women who fled were fleeing similar unrest and persecution in their home country, so it's no different a situation really."