Last summer I was walking with a friend on the trail from the Spit to Manly wharf in Sydney. We were surrounded by vibrant green plants, and walked alongside the harbour’s blue water, on Gadigal country.
On this glorious day, my mind took me back to the journey I had travelled to get here. On Manus Island I was surrounded by jungle and its ugly brown frogs. Mosquitoes could poison me with malaria and spiders painted the ceiling with cobwebs. I remembered feeling that the Earth had conspired against me, that the Australian ministers used their unfettered government power to speak to the fences at the detention centre and make a deal with Mother Nature to keep me caged.
But what was worse than this secret pact? Being in a sterile hotel room without nature at all. The Australian government “medevacced” me to this country for medical help and I lived inside an invisible coffin for 15 months. I couldn’t even feel dirt under my feet.
I know that power must be held accountable, and a change in the law can break political deals and change everything.
I brought proceedings against the Australian government to challenge the legality of hotel detention. In July last year, my case was heard by justice Murphy of the federal court, in Melbourne. The hearing went for two days. One of our arguments was a simple one: the government did not have the power under the Migration Act 1958 to establish “alternative places of detention” or “Apods” (government jargon for hotel detention) and therefore I (and everyone else who has been detained in an Apod) had been unlawfully detained.
Apods are only referred to in the definition section of the Migration Act, under the definition of “immigration detention”. There is no substantive power in the legislation for the immigration minister, or anyone else, to declare somewhere to be an Apod and detain individuals. We argued that the power cannot simply be implied in the definition (as the government claimed), particularly when that power allows the government to deprive refugees of their liberty.
If I win this case, it will have significant ramifications and not just for other people who have been held in hotel detention. Immigration Transit Accommodation Centres (in Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide) are also Apods, which means that thousands of people will have been unlawfully detained if the court finds in my favour. All these people might then have a claim for compensation from the government.
And so I hope that Thursday will be the day where I get my rights back after a decade of suffering. I hope that Thursday is truly refugee day, because we will have the power.
A part of me will always be with the innocent people who are still held offshore. Why am I free, and they are not? I am also with the protesters in my home country as they protest for revolution against the Iranian government.
But let me also share with you the joy in my life now.
I watch excited artists spilling out of an old warehouse and on to the street, in the inner-west of Sydney. We gather around a trestle table, scoop hummus on to Lebanese bread and drink red wine in a plastic cup. This is Christmas.
I am covered in paint at my studio at Addison Road Community Centre. I am immersed in colours on my canvas, drawing mountains from Kurdistan.
I swim in the ocean at Coogee Beach, surrounded by hundreds of other Australians with their sunscreen, beach towels and umbrellas.
I hug my friends and lawyers on the steps of the federal court in Melbourne.
The clouds and sun are smiling with me. We know I am now home, free.
• Mostafa Azimitabar is a refugee and Archibald prize finalist in 2022
