The man Peter Dutton tried to ban has arrived in Australia

Key points

  • Behrouz Boochani, who spent six years in refugee detention on Manus Island, has arrived in Australia to promote his new book.
  • While in detention he was a vocal critic of Australia’s immigration policies and then-home affairs minister Peter Dutton said he would never set foot here.
  • He eventually was accepted for asylum by New Zealand and now lives in that country.

Kurdish Iranian writer Behrouz Boochani was anxious when he arrived at customs last week for his first ever visit to Australia, after spending six years of detention on Manus Island.

It wasn’t just former home affairs minister Peter Dutton’s 2019 declaration that the award-winning author of No Friend But the Mountains would never step foot in Australia after seeking asylum in New Zealand that made him edgy.

Kurdish Iranian journalist Behrouz Boochani, in Sydney for the first time since he was detained on Manus Island for six years.Credit:Rhett Wyman

The 39-year-old former journalist, now resident of Wellington, New Zealand for the past three years, was also concerned how Australians would feel about him, after being a vocal critic of this country’s offshore detention system.

“I was anxious because I am sure I impacted Australia’s image in the rest of the world on refugee issues,” he said.

He need not have worried. From the moment he touched down the welcome has been nothing but warm.

“The guy who checked my passport at customs just said, ‘you look familiar mate’, and he laughed, checked my papers and let me in.

Now-Opposition Leader Peter Dutton took a strong stance over Boochani when he was home affairs minister.Credit:Nine News

“I’ve been working with people here for years, and I am meeting some for the first time … I feel relaxed now I am finally here,” he said.

In Sydney to promote his second book, Freedom, Only Freedom, edited by Moones Mansoubi and translator Omid Tofighian, he was given a rock star welcome most places he went.

When he visited the iconic image of him taken by fellow Iranian artist Hoda Afshar, which won the 2018 Bowness Photography Prize, members of the public snapped photos, congratulated and thanked him when they recognised him beneath the mask he was wearing to go incognito.

He was so moved he visited twice, braving opening week crowds at Sydney Modern and the Art Gallery of NSW, to see the portrait and a 2018 video installation called Remain he worked on with Afshar on Menderlin Island, near Manus.

Iranian-Australian photographer Hoda Afshar and author Behrouz Boochani, visit her work at Sydney Modern.Credit:Rhett Wyman

He credits this photo and the mini-documentary as shining a spotlight on his fellow stateless people on Manus and Nauru, showing in images, what he’d been trying to say in words painstakingly typed out in text messages while he was incarcerated.

He said the best word to describe Afshar’s work was: “Epic.”

A bit like the near decade-long journey it has taken for him to get to Australia, since fleeing his native Iran in 2013 because of his activist journalism on behalf of the Kurdish people, taking a boat from Indonesia which lead to his arrest and detention.

“For me when I look at this work it is the way that I stand up that strikes me- it is sort of like a metaphor for standing up against the system – looking at Australians directly in their eyes – not as a victim but as a fighter, someone who is struggling to expose the system,” he said.

His second book continues his advocacy on refugees issues, and he remains critical of the Australian government under the leadership of Anthony Albanese.

“I am here to raise the issue of the 200 people who remain in Port Moresby and Nauru … and that of the people transferred under Medivac law to Australia, who recently received letters telling them they must leave to a third country.”

He has also wants Australians to join him in condemning the brutality of his homeland Iran, where leaders last week executed protestors.

“I’ve been speaking out about Iran – trying to get people to understand different layers of the Iranian protest. But Australians need to join me in condemning the brutality of the Iranian government.”

On Monday night Boochani will talk about his new book at a Wheeler Centre event in Melbourne, on Tuesday in Sydney for an event at the University of NSW before heading for Canberra on Wednesday.

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