Introduced by Craig Foster, former Socceroo and human rights advocate.
The daring plan to spirit a refugee out of detention.
Kurdish-Iranian journalist Behrouz Boochani spent almost seven years detained on Manus Island and mainland PNG after coming to Australia by boat in 2013.
During his time on Manus he wrote accounts of his detention for newspapers around the world as well as a memoir, No Friend but the Mountains, which was assembled from thousands of text messages sent from a phone that had been smuggled in for him.
That book went on to win several prestigious Australian literary awards.
Last year, as Boochani continued to languish in PNG, a small group of supporters came up with an audacious plan to get him out. An invitation to a writer’s festival in New Zealand meant that he could apply for a visitor’s visa to that country but there were risks involved at every step of the way.
“It was not guaranteed that I be able to leave PNG,” Boochani tells Australian Story. “I was not sure even when I get in the plane.”
Those involved in the plan to get Boochani out of PNG reveal the inside story of its execution, the risks involved and their doubts that they would succeed.
This episode also looks at Boochani’s life since he arrived in New Zealand – his triumphant appearance at the writer’s festival in Christchurch, the attempts to politicise his asylum claim and his plans for the future.
Producers: Quentin McDermott, Greg Hassall and Natalie Whiting.
