Internationally recognised Iranian refugee faces deportation

Ardeshir Gholipour is an Iranian asylum seeker who has spent almost five years in the Australian Government's immigration detention centres since fleeing Iran in early 2000. On the 5th of January, Ardeshir received a letter from the respected writers' organisation PEN International accepting that his claim to refugee status was well-founded, and urging the Australian Government to look sympathetically on his case.

However, in a dramatic illustration of the harsh and arbitrary system administered by Australia's Department of Immigration, the next week (on January 14th) Ardeshir received a letter from the Department telling him that his application for a humanitarian visa under section 417 of the Migration Act had been refused.

This letter of refusal is the same sort of letter shown to an Iranian man last Tuesday (11 Jan) immediately prior to his forcible deportation to Iran on an Emirates flight from Sydney. Refugee advocates are now extremely worried for the fate of Ardeshir and other Iranians in Baxter Detention Centre who are no longer "in process".

Prior to his escape from Iran in March 2000, Ardeshir spent two years in the notorious Evin prison, and worked on pro-democracy publications repressed by the Iranian authorities. A number of his fellow writers were jailed or killed by the Iranian regime. This history was highlighted by the Writers in Prison Committee of PEN International, who adopted Ardeshir's case earlier this month (see attached letter).

"Ardeshir's case is one of many that show the obscenity of the Australian Government's refugee policies", said Jerome Small of the Victorian Refugee Action Collective today. "It is outrageous that even someone like Ardeshir with a well documented history of repression, recognised by international bodies such as PEN, can have their application rejected - with no reason given - by some faceless bureaucrat in the Department of Immigration", said Mr Small.

"We believe that Ardeshir, like the other asylum seekers locked away for years without charge or trial, should be released and given permanent protection", said Mr Small. "These people need freedom and help rebuilding their lives, not the prospect of return to one of the world's most horrific regimes."

For comment, please contact:
Jerome Small, phone 9347 6627 or 0437 197 871
Tanya McConvell, phone (02) 6297 8047 or 0402 555 007
Tim Petterson 0438 399 973

Picture of Ardeshir Gholipour with his painting "Freedom Song", which won a prize in the Port Hedland Art Show in 2003 while Ardeshir was incarcerated in Port Hedland Detention Centre

Attachments:
1) picture of Ardeshir (high resolution photo available from Tim Petterson)
2) letter from PEN

The Age
By Arnold Zable
May 13, 2005

It's time to end the inhumane treatment of asylum seekers and give an amnesty to all detainees.

When Iranian asylum seeker Ardeshir Gholipour stepped out of Baxter detention centre last Friday week after five years of incarceration, his first thoughts were of how so many years of life could have been taken away from him and his fellow detainees.

Gholipour had not committed a crime. Indeed, he had fled in fear for his life after years as a pro-democracy activist in Iran. This included 27 months in a tiny cell in Tehran's Evin prison for distributing pamphlets on behalf of the Iranian Freedom movement.

As he tasted his first minutes of freedom, Gholipour thought of the long-term detainees he had left behind. He says he cannot rest until they too have been set free. He knows that each passing day of incarceration is an agony.

The evidence is overwhelming. Indefinite detention creates a progressive deterioration in mental and physical health.

This was most recently acknowledged last Thursday in a historic judgement by Justice Paul Finn of the Federal Court who found the Department of Immigration had breached its duty of care by failing to provide adequate treatment for two severely disturbed Baxter detainees.

Finn quotes psychiatrist Dr Jon Jureidini who, in reference to one of the detainees, asserts: "The Baxter environment, along with the hopelessness about his future, are the primary causes of his mental illness."

This has also been obvious to those who have visited detention centres in recent years. The first asylum seeker I met in Maribyrnong detention centre, in January 2001, said that detained asylum seekers are worse off than criminals.

At least the criminal knows the length of his sentence, he pointed out. "We do not know when, if ever, we will get out." I have heard this repeated many times since.

Indefinite detention is a gross breach of human rights and almost impossible to bear. In mid-January this year, when his final plea for a visa on humanitarian grounds was rejected, Gholipour took an overdose of tablets.

He knew that he could be deported at any time. Two Iranians had been bundled out of Baxter in previous months, and summarily returned to their country of origin.

Gholipour knows of more than 20 suicide attempts by detainees. Fortunately, due to information supplied by International PEN's London office, Gholipour's case was re-opened and he was finally released, but it was a close call.

Gholipour's plight also highlights the malaise within the Department of Immigration, and the development of a culture of suspicion towards asylum seekers.

There are exceptions. Asylum seekers have acknowledged those immigration officials who have treated them with respect and empathy.

There are still some who reflect the attitude of postwar officials who were sympathetic to the plight of millions of displaced peoples in Europe, seeking refuge far from the horrors of their recent past.

The events of World War II inspired the creation of 1951 UN conventions that asserted the rights of refugees to seek asylum due to a fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.

It was an era when people chose to work for the Immigration Department because of a desire to help traumatised people find new homes.

This no longer appears to be the case. Too often the department has treated asylum seekers with a presumption of guilt.

This culture of suspicion bordering on contempt is the underlying reason for the wrongful detention of at least 33 Australians that have recently come to light, and for the deportation of Australian citizen, Vivian Alvarez Solon, to the Philippines.

The brief for the Palmer inquiry into the Cornelia Rau affair may have been expanded because of these cases, but if it does not examine the system as a whole, it will not achieve anything of substance.

What is needed is a royal commission on aspects of immigration detention, the department, its contractors and the fate of deportees. Meanwhile, long-term detainees should be granted an immediate amnesty.

Some advocates have called it an act of grace, others an act of humanity, or an act of compassion. Whatever the name, the time has come to end the nightmare for about 90 long-term asylum seekers still left in Baxter, the 54 incarcerated on Nauru, those still imprisoned in Villawood, Perth and Maribyrnong detention centres, and 35 Vietnamese asylum seekers who remain on Christmas Island. These include children, some of whom have been born in detention.

In recent days, the Spanish Government has declared an amnesty for 700,000 unauthorised immigrants.

In Australia there are just several hundred in detention, and about 7000 on temporary protection or bridging visas. They have lived in limbo long enough.

There are humane alternatives, variations of the Swedish system, for example, where, after initial checks, all asylum seekers, except those considered to be a threat to national security, are released into the community pending a decision on their cases.

Advocates such as Grant Mitchell of the Hotham Mission, who worked with refugees in Sweden, have provided detailed alternatives to long-term detention.

The scars of incarceration will remain with Ardeshir Gholipour. We cannot return his years of despair and wrongful detention.

But we can honour his wish to help the men, women and children who are still imprisoned. Their only crime was to seek a new life for themselves and their families free of oppression. They have only done what our own immigrant forebears did, give or take a few generations.

Arnold Zable is an author and refugee spokesman for the writers' association International PEN.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/Opinion/Our-cruelty-to-detainees-must-stop/2005/05/12/1115843309323.html

5 January 2005

Senator Amanda Vanstone
Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs
Parliament House
Canberra
ACT 2600
Australia

Dear Senator Vanstone,

Re: Application for a 417 Humanitarian Visa for Iranian asylum seeker Ardeshir Gholipour

The Writers in Prison Committee of International PEN, the world association representing writers in 99 countries, has long been concerned about the state of freedom of expression in Iran, notably the large numbers of writers who are detained for the practice of their professions.

We understand that an Iranian writer, Ardeshir Gholipour, is currently detained in Baxter Immigration Detention Centre and that he is imminent danger of repatriation to Iran. International PEN is alarmed by the prospect of Gholipour's forced return and calls on the Australian immigration authorities not to order his repatriation.

Mr Gholipour has been held in immigration detention since March 2000, having fled Iran earlier that year. International PEN's Writers in Prison Committee based at the organisation's headquarters in London has investigated Mr Gholipour's story and we can confirm the legitimacy of his claims, and that he has real reason to fear persecution for his legitimate and peaceful political activism should he be returned to Iran. His involvement in the Iran Freedom Movement and the Left Union for Democracy in Iran makes him particularly vulnerable to repression.

As a writer, specifically for the Left Union for Democracy's publication, the Payan peroz Research Bulletin, between 1994 and 1997, and for his work for the samizdat newspaper Khaber Nameh, Gholipour has been particularly courageous in his stance against suppression of dissent in Iran. Notably, Khaber Nameh provided reports and commentary on the murders of prominent writers in the late 1990s, for which a number of Iranian officials were later convicted. One of those murdered was Pirooz Davani, also a writer, and with whom, until his murder in 1998, Gholipour worked closely. Both worked on articles for Khaber that were strongly critical of the Iranian government and called for constitutional change. Information they published included reports of mass graves containing the bodies of dissidents, and implicating the security services in the deaths and the torture of political activists. This clandestine magazine also published letters from the well known writer, Faraj Sarkoohi, who at that time had been abducted by intelligence services then sentenced to death, subsequently released and now living in exile in Germany. To publish such articles in late 1990s was an extremely courageous and dangerous activity for which Davani paid with his life.

Five years after his flight, the situation for Iranian writers remains precarious. PEN has on its records at least 13 writers currently detained in Iran, serving lengthy sentences for reasons which have been condemned internationally as clear breaches of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights.

International PEN therefore calls on you as Minister of Immigration to exercise your right to offer Ardeshir Gholipour a humanitarian visa.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have further queries.

Yours sincerely,
Dr Karin Clark
Chair