Behrouz Boochani

Refugees on Manus and Nauru were given hope by the passing of the medivac bill, but the reality is just another layer of bureaucracy added to their lives.

In a recent profile in The Saturday Paper, photographer Hoda Afshar spoke about her collaboration with journalist Behrouz Boochani, who is on Manus Island. Here, he describes the creation of an image that stands on the threshold of civilisation and barbarism.

The passing of the fifth anniversary of offshore detention on Manus has seen those incarcerated on the island sink further into mental despair and physical surrender.

“The soul of Manus prison and the system that created and governs Manus prison is in the process of replicating itself throughout Australian society, reproducing itself in unlimited numbers. This is the merciless system that takes humans as captives and …”

Detained on Manus Island for five years, journalist Behrouz Boochani has recorded the experience in film, essays and poetry.

“Anti-Australian sentiment grows among Manusians, as they believe Australia exploits their tiny island with a colonial mentality that never retreated. People in the forest villages beside Hillside and West Haus are kind towards refugees, but they have …”

After four years of detention on Manus Island, the author writes a poet’s manifesto for the refugee resistance in which he has found himself to be a central figure.

As the Manus Island detention centre is closed, refugees are under mounting pressure to resettle in an area of PNG where they are unsafe and unwanted.

On a tiny island off the coast of Manus, a local family offers asylum seekers kindness and some respite from their ordeal.

“We are the victims of this policy; and for three years, we have been taken as hostages in an official and exiled approach.”

Manus Island claims to have a properly equipped hospital, but for detainees requiring more than just a painkiller, the facilities are grossly inadequate.

“Everyone, in his mind, traces a course of the history of the hellish life on this island, from before the riot in February, a period prisoners call ‘The Great Famine’, to the murder of Reza Barati.”