Over 1,000 leading Australian writers and journalists have added their names to an open letter calling for acclaimed Kurdish refugee-writer-journalist Behrouz Boochani to be released from the Manus Island detention centre and resettled in Australia.
Nobel Prize for Literature winner J.M. Coetzee, journalists Peter Greste, Kerry O’Brien, Tracey Spicer, Kate McClymont and Quentin Dempster, and writers Michelle de Kretser, Alexis Wright, Alice Pung, Christos Tsiolkas, Andy Griffiths, and Kate Grenville are among the initial signatories to the open letter, which has been co-ordinated by the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance.
The MEAA is co-ordinating a new campaign calling for the Morrison Government to resettle in Australia the acclaimed journalist, writer and film-maker Behrouz Boochani, who has been detained for more than half-a-decade at the Manus Island Regional Processing Centre, operated on behalf of the Australian government.
Journalists regard Boochani, who fearing persecution and harassment fled Iran and sought asylum in Australia, as a professional colleague who can make a meaningful contribution if resettled in Australia.
Boochani is among about 580 other refugees, migrants and asylum-seekers still held on Manus Island as victims of the Australian Government’s cruel policy of deterrence and indefinite offshore detention for those who seek refuge in Australia by sea.
He sought refuge from Iran so he could freely express themselves without fear of persecution or harm, but instead, his freedom has been further suppressed in detention.
Boochani fled Iran in 2013 and was aboard a boat carrying asylum seekers that were intercepted by the Navy as it attempted to reach Australia that year.
He has been incarcerated on Manus Island ever since. His 2018 book about his experiences, No Friend but the Mountains: Writings from Manus Prison, won two prizes at the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards earlier this year.
Boochani taught himself English and contributed occasionally to The Saturday Paper to expose – to the dismay of government – what is really happening on Manus Island.
MEAA chief executive Paul Murphy today said Boochani’s safety and welfare had deteriorated since the publication of the book, and the case for releasing him from Manus Island was now urgent.
“Behrouz has effectively become a marked man since the fame that his book has brought him,” Mr Murphy said.
“In November 2017, he was targeted and arrested by Manus authorities during a protest by asylum seekers. He is now constantly threatened and we have grave concerns for his safety while he remains on Manus Island.”
Peter Greste, now UNESCO Chair in Journalism and Communication at the University of Queensland who spent more than a year in an Egyptian prison while reporting for Al-Jazeera in 2015, said Boochani had courageously worked as a journalist chronicling life on Manus Island for publications in Australia and overseas, while also helping Australian-based journalists cover the situation there.
“Behrouz represents the best of journalism in his brave reporting which has revealed the unpleasant reality of the ongoing incarceration of hundreds of asylum seekers on Manus Island,” he said.
“But Behrouz’s own detention brings shame upon our nation, and undermines Australia’s credibility as a leader for press freedom across the Asia-Pacific region.”
In the open letter, journalists and writers extend a welcome to Boochani as “a valuable member of the contemporary Australian literary community”.
“We call on the Australian government to allow Behrouz Boochani into our country, where he can continue to work safely as a journalist and writer,” the letter says.
“We also urge that he be offered a pathway to permanent residency. We will all be enriched by this,” Greste said.
– With Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance (MEAA) and La Trobe University. Read the original article.
DISCLOSURE: The editor of Kinglake Ranges News, Ashley Geelan, signed the petition and supports Behrouz’s re-settlement in Australia.
