Rural Australians for Refugees will mark seven years of indefinite detention of asylum seekers and refugees with events in Yackandandah, Beechworth, Albury-Wodonga, Benalla, Wangaratta, Euroa, Alexandra and Mansfield.

The vigils, mostly between 11am and noon, will involve no more than 10 participants at a time, standing 1.5 metres apart, wearing masks and holding signs. In some locations, bells will chime seven times every five minutes.

Amnesty Yackandandah organiser Clare Cunnington said her group would plan a roster so all who wished to join in could do so safely, given the COVID-19 restrictions. Others who preferred not to join a public gathering could also take part.

"They're going to stand in their own garden and do a selfie holding one of those signs and then they can put them up themselves on social media," she said.

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On July 19, 2013, then-Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced a new regional resettlement arrangement for asylum seekers.

"From now on, any asylum seeker who arrives in Australia by boat will have no chance of being settled in Australia as refugees," he said at the time.

Ms Cunnington said this year's experiences had really underlined the plight of people in detention.

"It's really rammed it home for me doing our own COVID lockdowns, which have been relatively benign and actually almost lovely in Yackandandah," she said.

"But when you're not able to go out and about and do what you want to do and hug people ... you realise how precious that kind of basic thing is and these people haven't been allowed to do it for seven years."

RAR immediate past president Marie Sellstrom said many Australians had complained about lockdown.

"We're doing to people what we object to happening to ourselves," she said.

Ms Sellstrom, of Mansfield, expressed concern the Australian government was considering removing mobile phones from people in detention.

Acting Minister for Immigration Alan Tudge told parliament in May mobile phones and internet-capable devices presented an unacceptable risk to the safety and security of the immigration detention environment.

Ms Sellstrom said taking away phones would be "absolutely devastating".

"It's their only way of contacting their family, their friends, it's their method of being able to translate where they don't have good English," she said.