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.

Behrouz Boochani calls Christchurch welcome a ‘reminder of kindness’ Read more

For a Kurdish journalist targeted by the Islamic Republic of Iran, living in the uncertainty of being returned to face torture or imprisonment was no real option. That’s the thing about refugees, our flight is a harrowing necessity. That reality is at the core of the right to seek asylum, recognised by the UN refugee convention and most nation states after the shameful abandonment of Jews fleeing Nazi persecution during the Holocaust. So, policies like Australia’s offshore detention system, or Trump’s caged children, are an attempt to deter those who are already escaping the unthinkable from seeking safety. That was the context for Behrouz’s plight, that remains the source of unfairness.

The camps have since been declared unlawful by the United Nations, their conditions being described as amounting to torture by the UN itself and the likes of Amnesty International. But mainstream condemnation would likely not come about without the constant stream of firsthand reporting provided by Behrouz.

That he got to walk free on Thursday night in New Zealand was a dream six years in the making. What Behrouz and the 900 or so men with whom he shared his island prison suffered was hardly bearable. He said on Friday that, for the first time, he saw himself as a survivor of Manus Island, because until now he was never sure whether he would make it out. It was never just the violence, never just the lack of hygiene, or the brutal conditions of the centre itself. It was, Behrouz said, the mental torture caused by being deprived of hope.

Today, Aotearoa New Zealand gets to stand as a counterpoint to the politics of hate and division on the rise elsewhere in the world. For today, we get to stand for inclusion and fairness – for a world where an award-winning author and activist gets to speak at an international writers festival, no matter his place of birth or status as an asylum seeker. What we can’t forget, because Behrouz will not allow it, is that hundreds are still sit trapped in those prison islands, and it is our job to use our freedom to help bring them to safety.

If you would like to comment on this topic, you can do so here.