It has been four years since the Manus prison riot of February 2014. It led to the killing of Reza Barati. Every year on the anniversary of his death refugee rights activists from different cities around Australia hold memorial ceremonies and join us as we mourn for Reza. Even though four years have passed, the killers have yet to be brought to justice, and there are still no clear answers to the fundamental questions concerning the riot.

Reza Barati: men convicted of asylum seeker's murder to be free in less than four years Read more

Over these past years every violent occurrence in Manus prison has arisen whenever refugees demand an answer to one question. This simple and reasonable question is the source of every brutal event, and it was what initiated that particular peaceful protest. During those days the refugees asked the authorities in the prison: “For how many more months or years do we have to remain in prison?” They followed this up by staging a peaceful protest for two weeks. They continued until immigration officials requested a meeting with representatives from the refugees in the dining area of Mike camp.

On that day more than a thousand refugees were hopeful that the immigration authorities would tell them how much longer they would have to remain in prison. When immigration authorities didn’t answer this question, a large-scale riot starting that very night.

It was obvious that immigration orchestrated this kind of response for the angry refugees on purpose. They wanted to proceed with their plan to suppress the refugees with an “iron fist”. The refugees were already furious, weary and volatile. And immigration knew this all too well. By being evasive at the meeting, they basically threw a lit match onto petrol.

After years have passed I still feel that justice was not served

In addition to that, immigration had fomented hate against the refugees among the locals. For days on end after the riot the Manusian residents and local guards told the refugees that they were just following orders. They claimed they were not to blame and it was all the machinations of the Australians. This was a well organised plan. They wanted to put the refugees in their place; people who only wanted to know how long they had to remain in prison. There was just one objective to their plans: to make the refugees return back to their countries by giving them a severe beating. The politics of offshore processing and the logic behind managing the Manus and Nauru prison camps are essentially founded on one principle: to create a situation so harsh that it forces the refugees to return to their countries of origin.

Key witness in Reza Barati murder trial fears he will be killed on Manus Island Read more

The riot occurred over two consecutive nights. The first night was 16 February, where the refugees were able to gain control of the prison for a number of hours after struggling for some time against the officers. On the second night the power was cut and the prison became completely dark. Some local people together with G4S guards attacked the prison. It was there that over 100 refugees were severely injured, one person was shot, one person had their throat slit … and Reza was killed. Over the years that particular riot and the killing of Reza gave rise to many other incidents.

One refugee by the name of Behnam Satah witnessed what had happened with his own eyes, he saw how Reza was killed. As the main witness, Satah was called to appear in court on a number of occasions. After he testified against two of the main defendants he was threatened with murder on many occasions. However, he maintains: “I was determined to go to court for the sake of achieving at least some justice.”

Now that I think about this issue after years have passed I still feel that justice was not served. You see, two Australian officers involved in Reza’s death did not have their cases prosecuted. They were flown off the island immediately. One of the two local individuals who received a more than four and a half year jail sentence escaped from prison in 2016. He is still at large. The other one escaped from prison on 4 January but was captured after nearly three weeks.

For years Satah has been living under conditions of impending danger. And this is the reality of his life on Manus. He is still struggling with the impact from witnessing the killing of Reza by the officers; he is extremely traumatised.

Just a few months ago we were reminded of that fateful February 2014. In mid-November 2017, when the refugees refused to move out of the prison, the situation became like what we experienced when Reza was killed. We had the opportunity to bring in a few journalists in the dead of night and meet face to face with the refugees. On one of those nights I walked over to Mike camp with one of the journalists and a photographer. Satah was asked to provide a description of the events from the night of the riot while standing at the very spot where Reza was killed. He went up onto the steps, and as soon as he tried to explain the events of that night, he just stood there for minutes on end and wept. After all these years he is still affected by the killing of Reza. It seems that his nightmares are not over yet.

Decay, despair, defiance: inside the Manus Island refugee camp | Ben Doherty Read more

But the main purpose of this article is Reza Barati the man. I met him on the first day when we were transferred to Christmas Island and got to know him well after that. He was a young man with an incredibly broad and powerful physique, so much greater than a regular-sized man. For one month we shared a room, until they forcibly exiled us to Manus Island.

Reza was a kind-hearted and compassionate human being. His huge and strong build was the butt of jokes, and people would forget how gentle he always was to his fellow inmates. He possessed the face of friendship and warmth. However, he also revealed characteristics of youthful naiveté. Due to his kindness friends would call him “the gentle giant”. Reza was born in a small town called Lomar in Ilam Province, part of the Kurdistan region of Iran. This town is located along the river Seymareh and the ancient city of Sirwan. He was born in the same year that the Iran-Iraq war ended. He took his first steps in this world on the ruins of war, which means that he experienced years of hardship and affliction. He studied architecture at university and was determined to finish his studies. During those days on Christmas Island he would sometimes call and talk to his mother and little sister. He would share his feelings towards them with me in that childlike sincerity of his. He was essentially nothing more than an ordinary youth with the kind of dreams that every single young man from every single culture has for his future. He died at the hands of people who he requested to provide him protection and in a prison on a remote island.

His death is an utter tragedy. And it is because of this that he has become a symbol; he represents the innocence of the refugees held on Manus and Nauru. The way he was killed, and the violence that left him dead, more than anything else, echoes the level of ruthlessness inherent to the system of offshore processing. Four years have passed since that event and questions are still left unanswered. Why didn’t the police force try to stop the attack by the locals and officers on that night? Why weren’t those two Australians pursued and investigated? And why didn’t they appear in any court? Also, what was the role of the G4S guards who had the responsibility to protect the refugees? And why didn’t they carry out their duties appropriately?

Refugee found dead after escaping Christmas Island detention centre Read more

It is because these question remain unanswered that the violence of February 2014 continues to repeat itself; it occurred again in January 2016 during the mass hunger strike. At that time the Wilson officers attacked the prison. They beat the community of starving refugees and imprisoned many of them in the local jail. These unresolved matters are at the core of other manifestations of violence. Consider what happened on Good Friday in 2017 when soldiers from the army attacked the prison, firing more than 100 shots. It is also this point that influenced the police and immigration officials to bash refugees who were involved in peaceful resistance on 23 November 2017 and ultimately forced them to shift to the new camps.

Violence is an essential feature of the system that exiled refugees to Manus Island and Nauru. After all these years it still manifests itself in many different ways. Therefore, people such as Reza, Behnam, Fazel Chegeni and others who have been killed and injured, as well as the mothers of all these people, have been sacrificed to this political program.

Our Mothers, a poem for Reza

My mother, Reza’s mother and Fazel’s mother are crying together.

I heard the Seymareh river crying with them.

Beneath Fazel’s village is Sirwan, one of the most ancient and significant cities in the world.

The city of Sirwan.

Mothers cry upon the oldest city, cry for Reza and Fazel.

I heard all the beautiful mountains in Kurdistan are crying. All of Sirwan is crying. Mountain, rivers, wild flowers … all crying.

All of Sirwan is crying, all separated from their mothers.

I hear the most ancient of chants, I hear the mothers chanting in the city of Ilam, in the city of Sirwan, all throughout Kurdistan.

I hear their cries from inside Manus prison.

I hear the most ancient of songs, chanted by mothers. This form of chant is called Mour.

Mour is the oldest of songs, a song the Kurdish mothers chant for their boys and warriors who lose their lives fighting against enemies that attack the land of Kurdistan. It is a song for brave sons.

I write from Manus Island as a duty to history | Behrouz Boochani Read more

Fazel and Reza were brave sons. They fought for their lives.

When I was in Kurdistan, I climbed up the highest mountain on many occasions. The oldest chestnut oak trees reside up there. I hear the chestnut oaks crying too. My heart is extremely heavy, as I heard the deepest and most sorrowful Mour chanted by my mother today.

I have never heard a Mour like this, a choir of Mours, Reza’s, Fazel’s and my mother chanting.

This is Kurdish culture. We are born by song, live by song, fight by song, and die by song.

I feel the deepest sorrow because of Fazel’s death, because of and Reza’s death.

He deserves the deepest Mour to be sung for him.

My heart is heavy because I am crying and listening to a Mour sung for my best friend, sung in a prison on the remotest island in the world.

I never thought I would hear Mour sung for the bravest of Kurdish sons out on a remote island, out in the middle of a massive, silent ocean.

I always think about the Mour my mother will chant for me when I die.

I thought that song would be sung for me in beautiful Kurdistan. I am sure Reza and Fazel had this thought just like me, but their lives were taken in a remote place, not in Kurdistan.

They lost their lives because of injustice.

They lost their lives in a foreign land.

Who was there when their lives were taken?

My mother, Reza’s mother, and Fazel’s mother,

all together, all mourning, all chanting, the deepest Mour.

• Behrouz Boochani is a journalist and an Iranian refugee held on Manus Island. Translated by Omid Tofighian from the American University in Cairo/University of Sydney