A Philippine advocacy group, Bayan, called on President Benigno S. Aquino III to reveal specifics of the negotiations with Australia. “It is just shameful that a developed nation like Australia would refuse these refugees and instead move to have them relocated to a struggling, developing country like the Philippines,” said the group’s secretary general, Renato M. Reyes Jr.

This week, Australia’s High Court heard a legal challenge to the offshore detention policy, filed on behalf of a detainee from Bangladesh who had been sent from Nauru to Australia for medical treatment. Advocates want to prevent the government from sending her, along with about 200 other people who received treatment in Australia, back to Manus and Nauru. It is unclear when the court will issue a ruling.

Several cases of women who reported they had been raped on Nauru have also captured national attention in Australia, spurring further criticism of the detention program. One of the women is pregnant and says she wants to travel to Australia for an abortion, and an Iranian asylum seeker said to have been gang raped on Nauru in May is being treated in a hospital in Brisbane.

An Australian Senate report in August documented testimony about dangerous conditions at the Nauru center. This week, Nauru said that it was easing rules to allow the people being held there 24-hour freedom of movement and that it would process all of the more than 600 outstanding asylum claims within a week. A Nauru official told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on Thursday that as many as 200 of those claims might not be completed in that time, however.