AUSTRALIANS PROTEST DETENTION POLICY

THOUSANDS of people marched across major Australian cities Saturday calling for an end to  Canberra's offshore detention of asylum seekers.

The government sends anyone who tries to enter the country by sea to camps on Papua New Guinea's Manus Island or on Nauru in the Pacific for processing.

Protestors took tot the streets to mark the fifth anniversary of the policy's reintroduction, when in 2013 Canberra significantly toughened its stance, signing deals with the Pacific nations and declaring anyone arriving by boat had "no chance" of being settled in Australia.

"The policy that was introduced in 2013, to expel people - the 'Fortress Australia' policy that they [ the government] put in place - that has to go," rally organiser Ian Rintoil from the Refugee Action Coalition told Sydney protesters.

"So we fight to close the detention centres on Manus and Nauru, but we fight in that process to bring them here."

Hundreds marched through Sydney shouting, " Free, free the refugees " with banners stating, "Five years too long, evacuate Manus and Nauru". Joint rallies were held in Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane, and Canberra.

Reports of abuse, suicide and despondency filter out of the camps.

"Any country that openly rejects compassion and instead tortures people who we know are innocent, in order to make them a deterrent has somehow lost its soul," said Father Dave Smith, who recently returned from a visit to the Manus camp.

An Iranian man died in a apparent suicide on Nauru in June, with his body arriving in Australia last week what Rintoul said took much lobbying of a reluctant Australian government, which initially said the man should be buried in Nauru or repatriated to Iran.

The deceased man's mother, who requested his body be buried in a place the family could one day visit, remains on Nauru with her younger son but has been refused entry to Australia for the burial,  Rintoul added.