In our previous post we shared the wonderful news that Milad has left to settle in New Zealand. This is a translation of a letter Milad wrote to the Minister for Immigration seeking the exercise of the Minister’s power to intervene in his case. This was written before he was offered the chance to relocate to New Zealand. It is a heartbreaking read and a powerful documentation of a personal experience with Australia’s immigration system.
I was born in Tehran, Iran in 1988.
Today I decided to write all the events which happened when I started to come to Australia.
I travelled by plane from my country to Malaysia in May 2013 and then to Indonesia. I stayed in Bali for two days and after that I travelled to Jakarta by plane again. Me and eight other men who tried to travel to Australia stayed in one room together for 45 days. After that we travelled to another place in Indonesia. From there we were transferred to a boat to travel to Australia.
Before we got on the boat in Indonesia, we were kept in a house for 6 days, from 16 July to 22 July. They took our phones from us. They said this was necessary, so that the police would not know where we were. We had one bag each to take on the boat. It was a wooden boat and inside that boat were 74 other asylum seekers. At 5.00am in the morning, the boat started to move. We were on the water for 2 days and 2 nights. After this, the boat started falling apart from the middle. We were in international waters at the time. The water started entering the boat, and we only had one more day before the boat completely sank.
With a satellite phone we called the Australian coast guard and told them what was happening to us and they came with the navy, and they transferred us to the navy boat. Wewere taken to Christmas Island, arriving on 24 July 2013.
I have learnt that the Australian law changed on 19 July 2013, preventing resettlement in Australia for asylum seekers arriving by boat. We only found out about the change when we got to Christmas Island. We realised afterwards that the reason they took us to such a remote place and kept us in a room with no phones for 6 days, was so we would not find out about the change in law and could not change our minds about making the journey.
The Australian immigration told us that no one is allowed to come to Australia after 19 July. Anyone who tries to come after this date will be transferred to Manus Island on Papua New Guinea. We were told we could return to our country of origin, or we would be transferred to PNG. I couldn’t go back to my country so I waited to be transferred to PNG. After 15 days on Christmas Island, me and forty other men were transferred to Manus Island by airplane on 8 August 2013. Every week they transferred 40 men from Christmas Island to Manus.
When I arrived on Manus, they transferred me to Fox Detention Centre. It was a very old place. The facilities were very poor. It was actually not a detention centre. It was a military camp for PNG soldiers. It had been converted into a detention centre for the refugees.
Fox detention centre was very dirty and there was no security. Anyone from outside could come in. There were 200 refugees in Fox, with 5 toilets and bathrooms, and one big shelter as a place to eat. The food was dirty and unhealthy. Infested with insects.
When we first went to Manus there were two detention centres. After 5 months they started making two more detention centres. The new detention centres were named Oscar and Mike.
I spent one month in Fox Detention and then was transferred to Oscar. While I was there for four months, they were still building Oscar. It was made up of lots of big white tents. When it was finished, all the refugees in Fox were moved to Oscar, and new refugees were brought in to fill Fox again.
After four months in Oscar, I was transferred to the Mike Detention Centre, which was also not completed, and was being built while we stayed there. There were also two other detention centres, Delta and Charlie. 70 asylum seekers wh arrived in 2012 were kept there. At the time I moved from Oscar to Mike, those 70 were transferred to Australia.
In Oscar Detention, we had many difficulties with sleeping and hygiene and food and security and toilets and bathrooms. We did not have permission to use mobile phones. We could only use landline telephone twice a week for 30 minutes each time to talk with family.
Our mental and physical health was going down every day. There was more and more tension between us and between us and the guards. There were more fights. Also, local people came to the detention centre to beat us. We believed that this was pre-planned by Australian immigration. We believed it was to scare us and to push us to return to our countries of origin. That was really cruel.
Even if it was not pre-planned with no bad intention and everything just happened naturally, it still was so cruel to keep the refugees in a place that was very insecure and without any hygiene while they were having their claims processed.
When I was in Oscar detention, I became very sick with internal pain. I went to the IHMS. After a Doctor saw me, he decided to send me to the local hospital in an ambulance. When we arrived there, the Manager of the hospital did not approve me to be treated there. I went back to the detention centre – a 45 minute drive on bad roads, very bumpy. This caused me to vomit from the pain.
When I arrived at the camp, the Doctor gave me a few pills and told me to go back to my room, and that I would get another appointment after a few days. I was living with so much pain over those days until the next appointment arrived. Days went by, and no appointment was made. I was in terrible pain all this time. [Until now, 7 years later, I have had no treatment for this issue, and I manage with Panadol.]
When I was transferred to Mike detention centre, living conditions were much improved. There were four people to each ship container. But we only had one very small fan in the room. During the daytime it was intolerably hot. You could not stay in the room. In the first month we were there, we received lots of different news about the Australian immigration policies which caused us to become agitated, and this led to a peaceful protest by the refugees, sitting on the ground with signs and flags.
On the second day, the refugees planned a second peaceful protest. At about midday, an Australian security guard warned the refugees that ERT would get involved, and that we
should not leave the detention centre.
The refugees began a peaceful protest at 6.00pm. But this time, some people outside the detention centre started throwing stones over the fence at the refugees. The situation escalated to the point where there was serious conflict between the refugees on one side and security personnel and locals on the other. At this point chairs, toilet paper, stones, and everything was being thrown around. I got hit in the head by a chair, and still have the scar.
After two hours ERT arrived. They advanced into the detention centre in formation, pushing the refugees back, and then they retreated in a line, and the refugees followed them. They went backwards and forwards, getting further and further out of the detention centre. The refugees did not follow them outside the gates because of what the Australian security guard had said to them. We could see police hiding in the jungle with guns, ready to respond to the refugees if they left the compound.
We understood afterwards that the plan was to make it look like the refugees were trying to escape into the jungle, which would give them an excuse to shoot them. After the ERT and refugees were going backwards and forwards for some time, but the refugees would not come out of the detention centre, the police in the jungle started shooting many times – maybe 40 to 60 shots. When this happened, the refugees scattered, retreating into the centre, back to their rooms. Then ERT, security guards and locals rushed in after them, and went to each room, dragged refugees out, and beat them.
Many of the local people and security guards who came into the centre were drunk and as well as beating us, stole our belongings, destroyed chairs, beds, everything. It was complete chaos. I was lucky because I did not to get beaten.’ After the riot, with one person dead, and about 270 seriously injured, many refugees decided to return to their country.
In 2015, a year after the riot, I also tried to return to my country, Iran, because I was under so much pressure mentally, and also great physical pain. I felt that it was better to go back to my country to something I knew even though it was bad, than to stay on Manus where I never knew what would happen.
When I applied to go back to my country, I expected I would spend a week on Manus, two weeks in Port Moresby, and then back to my country as had been the case for others. But nothing happened for many weeks. I later discovered that the Iranian government had changed its policy because Australia had forced two Iranians back, and lied about it to the Iranian government, saying they had returned voluntarily. After this, the Iranian government refused to accept refugees who wanted to return.
When a migration officer told me that I was not able to leave, this was the start of my mental health issues. I felt trapped on Manus, with no options, and complete uncertainty about what would happen to me. For the first year after I was refused the chance to leave, I was angry, frustrated and struggling mentally. I used my mobile phone to post messages to facebook against my government and against the Islamic religion. Soon after, my parents received an anonymous message telling them to tell me to stop doing these activities, or they would get into trouble. They would be locked in detention until I was returned to Iran. The anonymous caller also said that I was lucky that I couldn’t come back to Iran. After this, I deleted my facebook to protect my parents.
Once I deleted facebook, I had nothing to do, and this further affected my mental health. At the end of 2017, Immigration tried to send us to a different place of detention in Manus Island. No one wanted to go there and expressed their refusal. To make us move, they stopped all services, power, food and water to the detention centre. This lasted for 23 days. We were living on nothing. We tried to find water by digging a well. We escaped from the Centre at night to take food from the locals or find coconuts. By the end of the 23 days, we were very tired and wanted something to happen.
Finally immigration returned with the local police. We knew what was going to happen, so we gathered together, so as not to be separated. When the police returned, I was the person directly facing the police as they entered the compound. They took me and beat me with a stick on my legs, and pushed me towards a bus. They forced me to enter the bus. There was an immigration officer on the bus. He punched me in the mouth. This caused the inside of my lip to bleed. The police and immigration forced all the refugees onto 10 or 20 buses in a similar way.
On about 23 December 2017 we were transferred to a new detention centre 45 minutes away in the town, Lorengau. The people who had their claims refused were sent to the Hillside detention, and those who had positive claims were sent to west and east Lorengau detention.
I lived in this new centre until October 2018. During this time there were many difficulties. For example, the camp was burnt by a refugee on one occasion. When this happened, some refugees went to live with friends at East and West Lorengau. The rest of us lived in the centre while it was completely black from smoke damage. There was no kitchen to prepare food. Immigration would deliver pre-packed food to us from another Centre. This continued for about 1.5 months, after which they fixed up the Centre.
During this time, my mental health deteriorated. I cried 5 or 6 times a day for no reason. One day I decided to give away all my belongings to others, including my money, my clothes, my phone, my ipad. I was left with one pair of shorts, one shirt and my bed.
On 23 October 2018, I locked myself into my room, and covered the windows with plastic so that it was dark inside all the time. I didn’t want to talk with anyone, or eat anything. I did this for 40 days. I ate a few dates each day and drank water. I lay on my bed. I would sometimes sleep. And when I was awake, I just tried to go back to sleep.
During this time, people visited me from immigration, and mental health nurses. They put two officers outside my room to report on what I was doing every day. On 3 December 2018, they knocked on my door. I was asleep and did not answer. So they smashed through the wall to get into the room. There were officers, nurses, and doctors.
On 4 December, they took me to the detention centre medical clinic, and I was placed in a special area for people with serious mental issues. They gave me some medicine and took me back to my room (where I had spent the 40 days). I still stayed in my room, and was in the same state as before, not eating, drinking of getting out of bed.
On about 16 December, they came to my room and took me to a special mental health centre for observation. I was kept there for one week with two officers in my room. On 22 December, two doctors came to my room and told me I would be transferred to the hospital in Port Moresby the next day.
On 23 December, I was taken to the PIH hospital in Port Moresby on an emergency small Plane. While I was in the PIH, a friend learnt that I was there and arranged for a mobile phone to be given to me, so I could talk to them, and also to some lawyers. The lawyers made an application for me to come to Australia for medical treatment.
On 8 February 2019, I was taken by plane to Brisbane. On 9 February, I was taken to Royal Brisbane Hospital for a few weeks, and then to the Brisbane Immigration Transit Accommodation (BITA) for about 4 months. I was then transferred to MITA in Melbourne for two months. I was then returned to Brisbane and released into community detention with no visa. I could go out during the day until 10.00pm but I couldn’t work, study or travel out of Brisbane.
After about six months, in early 2020, I became aware of the COVID pandemic. There were many people coming in and out of my house, and I was fearful of them bringing in the virus. I contacted a friend in Adelaide and arranged to stay with them for one week until the viruswas gone. I tried to return to Brisbane in March 2020, but the state borders were closed and I was stuck in Adelaide. I told immigration what had happened.
Soon after this, I was granted a BVE for 6 months. 2 months after receiving the BVE, I started working in a café in Adelaide. I rented accommodation, and my health was improving. In September, just before my visa expired, I had a mental health crisis. Once again, I gave away all my possessions, including my car, my clothes, and most of the money I had saved from working. I asked my friend who took my car to take me to Cape Jervis. I then walked and slept in the bush for 4 days on the way to Adelaide. I kept sleeping in the bush for about four months. I ate almonds and dates. Red Cross knew about my circumstances and gave me a small allowance which meant I could buy some food to survive.
I thought my visa would renew automatically. A friend made inquiries of the immigration department and I found out that my visa expired. I made a fresh application for a visa and was told I would have to wait for the Minister to decide. This was a terrible blow to me because I knew I needed to stay occupied for my mental health, but without a visa I was not able to work. Instead I just lived in the bush for a few months. My friend with my car gave my car back because he was worried about me. I then slept in the car for two months. And then I stayed in the house of an Australian couple for 2 months. After this, I moved to the house of another Australian family where I lived for six months. When they moved into a smaller residence, I had to find new accommodation.
Throughout 2022 and 2023, I spent some time in private rentals, and some time sleeping in my car. In early July 2021, a migration agent made an application for a further BVE, and this was granted in August 2021. I have supported myself by working as a disability worker, or as an Uber Eats driver. I have been able to work about three days a week. The Circle of Friends charity assists me with $150 a week for living expenses. While in Adelaide, I have played high level soccer for Unley Jets and Sturt Lions, and I have been a volunteer assistant coach for an u15 team at Sturt Lions. It is now over 10 years since I arrived on Manus Island. I am now 35 years old, and I am desperate to resolve the uncertainty around my status in Australia.
Early on in my stay on Manus Island, Scott Morrison visited and said that we should all go home. The alternative, he said, is you could spend 10 years on Manus. Well, that time has now passed, and I am still living as a asylum seeker with no rights in Australia. I am not able to return to Iran. I fled because of concerns for my safety. I have been informed that even if I could arrange passage home, I would immediately be placed in detention, or forced to join the army and fight on the front line in Syria.
My claim for refugee status was rejected on Manus Island, and I was advised not to appeal that decision by an Australian lawyer. As I understand it, that process is now closed, and I have no means to make a refugee claim while I am in Australia. I put myself at your mercy. I humbly request that you exercise your executive discretion to grant me a visa so I can make a life in Australia and contribute fully to this country.
