In the safety of a welcoming and generous Australia I have to speak out about the Islamic killing machine – I don’t care about the dangers

Marginalised since boyhood as a Jew in the fundamental Islamic state of Iran, Kooshyar Karimi was kidnapped, jailed and tortured before escaping to Turkey where he faced the challenge of keeping his family safe. They eventually made it to Australia as refugees.

After a two-hour stop in Qatar and another 18 hours of flying, we finally arrive in Sydney. When the plane lands we’re all emotionally and physically exhausted. It is 20 August 2000, a few weeks before the start of the Olympic Games. I’m carrying my daughter Niloofar and dragging our luggage behind me when an airport worker approaches us. “Let me carry that, sir.”

She’s pointing at the luggage. I stare at her – it’s unimaginable to me that a woman would carry something so heavy. In the Middle East men always do this for women. “No, thank you,” I say as politely as possible.

“Okay, sir, let me get the baby, then,” she says, smiling. I’ve never been called “sir” before. I gratefully hand Niloofar to her. “She’s lovely,” says the woman. Australians are friendlier than I could have hoped for.

When we emerge from Customs into the main airport we see a man carrying a sign with the UNHCR logo on it. He takes us to his car and tells us he’ll drive us to the short-term unit we’ve been allocated in the western suburb of Auburn. On the way he mentions a few things about Australia. “If you want to cross the road, press a button at the traffic light and wait for the green light.”

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“And all the cars will then stop for us?” I ask, amazed. No one in Iran would stop for anyone crossing the road. (In 2006, 21,000 people were killed in road accidents there.) To me it’s another indication of how safe, well-organised and liberated this country is.

We arrive at our two-bedroom unit in a large red brick building near the train station. It’s fully furnished and when Azita opens the fridge, she exclaims with joy. There it is, just as she was told: a jug full of orange juice.

Later in the afternoon we go out to explore. However, the longer we walk around, the less impressed we are. The first thing I notice when we leave the unit is the huge mosque in Sunni-style architecture near the train station. Most women we see in the street are wearing burqas, which are rare in Iran. Hardly anyone seems to speak English – they all talk in Arabic – and every second shop is a Turkish kebab takeaway. None of this is what we expected to find in Australia.

The last UNHCR officer we saw in Turkey, who was in charge of our travel to Australia, gave us some rudimentary advice on how to begin our life here. “The first place you should go to is Centrelink. They’ll give you some money until you find a job,” he told us.

There’s a Centrelink office just a hundred metres from our unit. It’s huge, with long queues and many employees. After waiting an hour I finally get to see an officer. She’s very nice while she asks me to fill out a lot of forms, including one to get a tax file number. In Iran almost no one pays tax. People just bribe tax officers, as they do with the police.

Once we’ve finished doing the paperwork the Centrelink officer tells me, “We’ll pay you three hundred and fifty-two dollars a week for three months. After that, you’ll have to find a job.” Then she asks me to go to the bank and open an account. We have very little to put into it: we stopped getting money from the UN as soon as we left Turkey.

I thank her, impressed by this country’s generosity towards its poor. If you have no job and no money in Iran, the government won’t help you and you die in the streets. However, I remember the woman at the Australian embassy saying it would be a long and difficult process to resume working as a doctor here. When I ask the Centrelink officer about it she tells me I have to contact the Australian Medical Council to start the process. “But yes, it’s complicated and can take many years,” she says sympathetically.

As I walk out an Iranian-looking man in his late twenties comes up to me. “You must be from Iran,” he says in Farsi. He introduces himself as Hossain, a common Iranian name. “I migrated to Australia five years ago. It’s hard at first but once you settle in, your life will be great,” Hossain says with a smile. Then he asks me about our accommodation and when I say I’ve no idea where to look or how much we should spend, he volunteers to help. He tells me that finding somewhere in Sydney won’t be easy – almost impossible, in fact – because I have no rental history and no job. Then he says, “Don’t worry, though. Leave it with me.”

The next day I meet him at the bank so he can help me open an account for my Centrelink payments. I’m given an eftpos card, which I’ve never heard of. “People here hardly carry cash – you pay with this card instead,” Hossain tells me. “You enter a pin number and then money is taken from your account. I’ll explain it properly later on,” he assures me. Then we go to a real estate agent together. Hossain encourages me to rent a house instead of a unit because it’s more comfortable, and after seeing a few old houses in Westmead I pick the cheapest one.

The application form asks for the details of my current landlord and how much rent I’m paying. Hossain puts down his name and address as my landlord and writes on the form that I work as a painter. He gives the name of a friend of his as my employer. I have to admit that without his help we’d be stranded. But instinct tells me there’s something shifty about Hossain.

Three days later we move into our first home in Sydney. We have no furniture and Hossain tells me I should go to Jewish Care. I’ve told him a little about my Jewish heritage, which I don’t usually disclose to anyone but I know I’m safe in Australia. “Why didn’t you mention this before?” Hossain asked in surprise. “You have nothing to worry about here. Jews are very powerful and rich in Sydney.”

The next morning I leave at eight o’clock to go to Jewish Care. I take a bus and a train to get to their large building in Bondi Junction. The receptionist guides me into a room and a woman in her fifties enters shortly afterwards. Her name is Karen and she’s an Ashkenazi Jew from Eastern Europe. She wants to know how many Jews live in Iran, how they live there, why I left, and what would happen if I went back.

After what reminds me of a Iranian intelligence service interrogation, Karen leaves the room. I sit on my chair for several minutes, anticipating great news. When she returns, Karen’s smiling and carrying a bottle of red wine. “Here, Kooshyar, we have a nice wine from Israel for you and seventy-five dollars in cash. We wish you all the best in Australia.” And she exits the room again.

By the time I reach home I’ve spent fifteen dollars on public transport.

The next day, a truck stops in front of our house. It’s from St Vincent de Paul, a charity run by the Catholic Church. They give us three foam mattresses, four foam pillows and a small table. The truck driver then says, “Here’s the number of a lady who has more stuff for you. She’s just bought some new furniture and she wants to give her old things to a poor family. You’d better contact her.”

That night I lie on one of the mattresses and wonder at how kind the church was to give us some furniture. Later on I find out it was Jewish Care who contacted them.

The following day Hossain and I go to the kind lady’s house. She lives in Turramurra, an attractive and expensive area of Sydney. She gives me a chair, a fan, a mini TV and a small fridge. I thank her sincerely and we manage to squeeze everything into Hossain’s car. On our way back I notice a shop that belongs to St Vincent de Paul.

“They sell secondhand stuff,” Hossain says. “It’s all very cheap.”

I go inside and buy a beautiful black, shiny, antique typewriter for five dollars. We squeeze it between the other stuff and rush home. I start using it that same night – and so my writing career in Australia begins.

On day seven, when I have no money left, my first Centrelink payment is deposited into my bank account. I feel enormously relieved, but I want to find a job as soon as possible. Hossain introduces me to Jamal, an acquaintance of his who has a mirror shop in Sydney’s pleasant North Shore area. He needs a labourer.

“What can you do?” asks Jamal.

“Everything – carpentry, mechanics, labouring, tailoring, plumbing, electronics.”

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I start immediately, earning $50 a day. Jamal also tells me he has a car for sale, a 1986 Holden station wagon for $500. I haven’t got that much cash but Jamal agrees to accept instalments over three months. I haven’t been behind the wheel for more than a year so when I drive home I’m thrilled, even though this old Holden is not quite as nice as my luxury Peugeot in Iran. When I arrive back I don’t knock on the door; I honk the horn instead. Azita and the girls climb into the car excitedly and we go for a ride. Three hours later, though, the car breaks down and we have to pay a mechanic to jumpstart it so we can return home.

The next day, when I try to pay for petrol, there’s no money in my bank account. I’m shocked and embarrassed. The kind man at the petrol station agrees for me to come back and pay later, as it’s only $20. It takes me just a few seconds to guess that Hossain has robbed me. When we came back from my job interview with Jamal, Hossain asked to borrow my eftpos card to buy cigarettes, saying he’d forgotten to bring his wallet. I could not refuse him because of our cultural background, so I gave him my pin and stayed in his car while he cheated me. He knew very well how to deceive an Iranian newcomer.

Neither Jamal nor I see Hossain again. I presume he’s gone to a different Centrelink to prey on another newly arrived Iranian. What he’s done doesn’t make me angry. It just saddens me profoundly.

We start to feel settled and life falls into a routine but I don’t want to work at Jamal’s shop forever. I aspire to use my real expertise in medicine and authorship. My biggest passion in life, writing, is still intact but there’s absolutely no hope I’ll be able to write professionally in English. I try to improve my language skills by watching SBS and reading the subtitles. I also start typing up my story, working late at night. When Azita discovers me at the typewriter and I tell her what I’m doing, she’s horrified.

“No! No way are you doing that. If you write our story I’ll divorce you and go straight back to Iran with the kids. We’ve had enough.” Azita already knows that under Australian law she is free to divorce me, unlike Iranian law.

“But I have to show people what we’ve been through. It’s not just about us – thousands have been jailed and tortured and executed by the regime,” I point out.

“I said no.” And she slams the door.

I have only two options: forget about writing or do it in secret. But I can’t forget about writing. It wasn’t Azita who was kidnapped and barbarically tortured and forced to cooperate with an evil system. So I write only when she’s asleep, and lie to her when she finds me out of bed at night. I can’t stay silent and let the Islamic killing machine continue to function. I don’t care about the dangers – I’ve seen what’s behind Iran’s veil and have to reveal it to the world.

This is an edited extract from Journey of a Thousand Storms - a Refugee’s Story, by Kooshyar Karimi (Viking, $35)