Australia's cruelty and shame.

More

For over five years @BehrouzBoochani painstakingly chronicled his "profound and annihilating mental torture", serving as a permanent record of the treatment suffered by people who sought safety in Australia and were met with a cruel indefinite detention system.

Behrouz Boochani (Born July 23, 1983 in Ilam, Iran) is a Kurdish journalist, human rights defender, poet and film producer. He is the co-director, along with Arash Kamali Sarvestani, of the documentary Chauka, Please Tell Us the Time^[1], has published numerous articles in leading media internationally about the plight of refugees held by the Australian government on Manus Island and released the book No Friend But the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison in 2018. He has been held in Manus Island detention centre since 2013.

Behrouz Boochani graduated from Tarbiat Modares University with a master's degree in Political Geography and Geopolitics. Boochani worked as a freelance journalist for the Iranian newspapers Kasbokar Weekly, Qanoon, and Etemaad^[2] where he published articles on Middle-East politics, minority rights and the survival of Kurdish culture.^[3] He cofounded and produced the Kurdish magazine Werya.^[2] In February 2013, the offices of Werya were raided by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.^[4] Boochani went into hiding for three months and on May 23, 2013, fled Iran. On his second attempt to make a boat crossing from Indonesia to Australia he was intercepted, detained on Christmas Island and after one month was transferred to the Manus Island detention centre in August 2013.^[3]

While living in the Manus Island detention centre Boochani has published articles in several newspapers internationally such as "The Day My Friend Hamid Kehazaei Died" in The Guardian^[5] and "Life on Manus: Island of the Damned" in The Saturday Paper.^[6] He has also published poems^[7][8]and narrates his story in the documentary film "Nowhere Lines: Voices of Manus Island".^[9] Boochani is also the subject of the play "Manus" written by playwright Nazanin Sahamizadeh.^[10]

The film "Chauka, Please Tell Us the Time" was shot inside the Manus Island detention centre by Boochani, entirely on a mobile phone.^[11] A review of Chauka, Please Tell Us the Time was written by the award winning writer Arnold Zable.^[12] In March 2017, Boochani's plight was raised in the Australian House of Representatives by Australian parliamentarian Adam Bandt.^[13] Boochani is on the shortlist for the Index on Censorship's Freedom of Expression Award in the category of Journalism.^[14]