Category Archives: Behrouz Boochani

Free but restless, Behrouz Boochani takes tentative first steps into new life

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Kurdish Iranian journalist is adapting to quietness and isolation of New Zealand after six years of struggle

It’s the middle of the day in a sleepy, affluent suburb of Christchurch and Kurdish Iranian refugee Behrouz Boochani is burning lunch.

It has been seven months since he arrived in New Zealand and the subtleties of cooking elude his grasp – and interest. His large house down the road from the University of Canterbury has a bachelor-pad vibe. Books are stacked untidily on every surface, and two broken heaters sit on the floor beside a heat pump turned to max.

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Behrouz Boochani granted refugee status in New Zealand

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Exclusive: Journalist who became the voice of the victims of Australia’s punitive detention system granted a visa after seven-year ordeal

Behrouz Boochani, the Kurdish Iranian exile and journalist who became the voice of those incarcerated on Manus Island, has had his refugee status formally recognised by New Zealand, and granted a visa to live there.

He said he finally felt secure “knowing that I have a future”.

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New Zealand would be honoured to take Behrouz Boochani. Australia be damned | Morgan Godfery

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The moral case for the former Manus island detainee becoming a citizen is as simple as ‘asylum is a human right’

I wonder if it winds up Peter Dutton to know that Behrouz Boochani, the Kurdish-Iranian journalist, award-winning author and former Manus Island detainee, is a free man in the continent’s orbit. Boochani, the best-known witness, critic and victim of Australia’s offshore “processing centres”, remains in New Zealand after his 30-day visa came to an end. No one quite knows what the No Friend But the Mountains author is planning next, but it seems safe to assume that sooner or later he’ll lodge an application for asylum in New Zealand. A permanent reminder to Dutton, his predecessors and the country’s immigration detention system that they are not as close to vanishing the “boat people” problem as they might have thought.

For their part New Zealand’s policymakers fear as much with headlines suggesting if Boochani’s hypothetical asylum application is successful it could “fuel tensions with Australia”. The problem is Behrouz Boochani, New Zealander, would enjoy free movement between his new home and his old incarcerators, unless Dutton and the gang insert new exceptions in the Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement. This is the “back door” the Coalition government in Canberra is so afraid of, and the political problem preventing Scott Morrison from taking up Jacinda Ardern’s invitation to resettle the last remaining detainees on Manus.

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Behrouz Boochani, brutalised but not beaten by Manus, says simply: ‘I did my best’

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After six hellish years inside Australia’s offshore detention regime, Boochani reflects on the country that rejected him, his new-found freedom and the friends he left behind

“One day,” Behrouz Boochani said, observing the bleakness of the abandoned Manus detention centre, its dark form illuminated by wood stripped from the buildings being burned for light, “we will meet in some other place, far away from here.”

That was two years ago, in the middle of a warm November night, when Boochani helped smuggle this reporter into the decommissioned Manus Island detention centre where 400 men were holding out against being forcibly removed: rationing their dwindling supply of food and medicine, guarding against the violent police crackdown they knew was coming, repairing the freshwater wells that had been deliberately spoiled by the retreating guards.

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Today, Aotearoa New Zealand stands with Behrouz Boochani as a counterpoint to the politics of hate | Golriz Ghahraman

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How poignant that Behrouz was freed from Australia’s grip and welcomed by Christchurch, a city that knows prejudice only too well

Today our world is a little freer, a little fairer, and a little more hopeful. Today, one less innocent man is incarcerated in Australia’s detention camp on Manus Island, guilty only of seeking refuge from persecution. Behrouz Boochani was no ordinary detainee. The Iranian Kurdish journalist and author became the voice of Manus detainees, and with it the persistent conscience of us all as we learned of the atrocities committed by the Australian government on its remote Pacific island detention camps.

How poignant that he was finally freed to visit Christchurch, a city that knows only too well the violence and suffering borne of prejudice. A city that wrapped its arms so warmly around its refugee community after a terror attack just seven months ago, to heal their wounds and stand for inclusion. Behrouz has said that Christchurch has taught the world about kindness this year. He is also quick to note that the prejudice that leads to violence against refugees is the same that underpins policies allowing cruel treatment of them by governments such as Australia’s. For him, the plight of refugees and displaced persons across the globe right now is connected to the fear-mongering politics of Donald Trump and Scott Morrison.

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Behrouz Boochani calls Christchurch welcome a ‘reminder of kindness’

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Official reception highlights New Zealand’s differences with Australia over immigration

The city of Christchurch has welcomed Behrouz Boochani with a civic reception and a traditional Māori mihi whakatau – a formal welcome – as his presence, and liberty, in New Zealand once again underscores the country’s political differences with Australia over immigration.

Boochani was formally greeted from the plane by the mayor of Christchurch and the city’s Māori leaders, who told him he was welcomed by the mountains, the rivers, and the people of the city.

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