Six years passed before the situation of Behrouz Boochani, an Iranian Kurdish journalist detained by Australia in a refugee camp in Papua New Guinea, was rectified. The 37-year-old refugee made himself known by testifying to his ordeal in an award-winning book, written using his mobile phone, from inside the camp. He has just obtained political asylum in New Zealand, a neighbor of Australia, announced Friday, June 24, the New Zealand Ministry of the Interior.

After six years of imprisonment, Behrouz Boochani managed to reach New Zealand in November 2019, with the help of the NGO Amnesty International and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Shipwreck at sea and confinement 

He had fled Iran in 2013 because of the prosecution of the Kurdish magazine for which he worked. After a perilous trip from Indonesia to Australia which ended in the sinking of his boat, the young man was arrested by Australian authorities and placed in a detention camp for migrants on Manus Island, located in the northeast of the Papua Archipelago.

In his book "No Friend But the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison" ("Testimony of an Island Prison. From exile to literary prizes"), published in 2018, Behrouz Boochani looks back on his career and his experience in the offshore camp, where Australia has locked up illegal immigrants for years trying to reach its coasts, in application of an immigration policy condemned by human rights organizations.

From 2013, arguing that it was saving lives by dissuading migrants from embarking on a perilous sea voyage, Camberra set out to turn back all illegal boats heading for its coasts. Migrants who fell through the cracks were sent to camps in Nauru or Manus under an agreement with Papua New Guinea. They were prohibited from settling permanently in Australia, even if they met the criteria for asylum.

Today, boat arrivals, once almost daily, have become extremely rare and several of these controversial camps have closed, including that of Manus in 2017.

Behrouz Boochani - who remained captive on Manus Island, despite the camp's closure in 2017 - did not end up in Papua New Guinea's capital, Port Moresby, until 2019, where he benefited of accommodation. 

Witness to a violent migration policy

Suicides, acts of self-harm and psychological suffering… Behrouz Boochani's book has helped to publicize the reality of living conditions in the Manus camps and the violence suffered by the refugees there, including children. It has been awarded.

Her testimony, painstakingly written on a cell phone and sent in snatches via WhatsApp to a translator, won the Victoria Prize for Literature last year, Australia's most richly endowed literary award.

Expressing his relief at the news that he was granted refugee status in New Zealand, Behrouz Boochani pledged to continue to fight for refugees in his new homeland, further planning to ask a permanent resident title.

He now works as a researcher at the University of Canterbury, based in Christchurch, the large city on the South Island of New Zealand.

With AFP

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