Freedom Is Beautiful (2023) Movie Script
1
I'm gonna tell you some story.
When I was on Manus Island, the people
call me 'Lion' Farhad.
And I don't know why they call me
maybe I was tough and really strong.
from Jakarta to Christmas Island
We were like 65 people
with families, some kids.
Everyone is sleeping, someone vomiting
in the edge of the
fisher boat.
Big wave came
half of my body was under the ocean.
I could see there is a rope.
And I hold it.
I grabbed it and no one knew.
I survived from that time
and I came back, said wow
So I will be alive.
There was something inside
and I believe that one day I will be free.
I didn't know they're gonna exile us
to Manus and Nauru for six years.
I was there for six years.
And then they transferred me
to Australia for medical help.
Still I am suffering from the pain and what happened to me
but I am a still strong, I am still the lion.
My life was the size of a room
for years and years.
I think it was a miracle
that I survived.
All those years that I was in detention
was like a nightmare.
Torture after torture.
I didn't want to get angry.
I wanted to be kind to myself.
I decided to keep my smile.
And I wanted to be a person
for people who don't have voice.
I learned to be patient.
I learned to become friends with music,
with painting.
When I got my freedom
I felt I have a new sense.
I felt that I have a pair of wings
and I'm gonna fly.
We will decide
who comes to this country and the circumstances
in which they come.
After rescuing more than 400 muslim asylum seekers,
no one could have predicted the
dramatic sea change ahead.
From now on, any asylum seeker who arrives in
Australia by boat will have no chance of being settled in
Australia as refugees.
The boats, the boats
will be stopped.
You have been brought to this place here because you
have sought to illegally enter Australia, by boat.
Persons transferred to regional processing centers
will not be settled in this country and the
position of this government will not change.
Are you saying that unaccompanied minors would be better off
in detention?
The Australian government forbids journalists
from filming or interviewing detainees at its camps.
This policy has been incredibly dehumanising.
It's like this is a horrible human
experiment that has no end.
The Guardian newspaper has been leaked more than 2,000
incident reports from Australia's Nauru detention camp.
The sexual assault of young children, the physical assault
of young children, the deleterious impact
of detention on children,
suicide attempts by children, self-harm attempts
and we've seen that continue.
We have been denied
our basic needs, water and food and electricity.
That does not mean that we are going to surrender.
We have been in this place for four and a half years
and we have not committed in any crime.
We are asking the international community
to rescue us from this disaster.
We have been struggling with
starvation.
I would like to say
and send this clear message to the government.
We only want freedom in
a safe country and it is a clear message.
What do we want?!
Freedom!
Nobody should ever doubt the resolve of
this government to keep our borders secure.
They won't be
you know, numerate or literate
in their own language, let alone English.
Until now there has been a long lengthy delay,
there has been almost obsessive legal intervention
to try and stop people who are ill from
being transferred over to Australia
for the care that they need.
This is going to be able
to get spivs and rapists
and murderers onto our shores.
The bill says serious crimes
would preclude that, that's wrong what you said,
you admit that?
What Labor says and what Labor...
What the bill says. I'm sorry, you've got to be factual
when you make the case.
I will do everything in my power to
ensure that these suggested changes that
would undermine our border protection laws never see
the light of day.
You're suggesting that they're almost, all of them are ill.
The bottom line is Barry, we're not prepared to weaken
border protection like Labor is
That's not the point, can you explain to me
how it is, that it's got to the point where almost all of
them are ill?
The point is Barry, we've stopped the boats.
Because of temporary protection visas
That's not an answer to that question
because of... offshore...
because of boat turn backs...
Hello Craig, I'm walking in the corridor
in the Park prison.
It's a very proud moment of my life
today, I'm gonna share with you.
I'm gonna be free very soon
I'm very excited and I just
wanted to tell you that, thank you very much for
all your amazing support
and thanks, all of you people.
I cannot believe it
I cannot.. yeah
this morning I call you, I'm going to be free.
Finally.
My name is Farhad Bandesh
I'm a Kurdish refugee.
Seven and half years of my life
I lost it for no reason.
Fortunately with lots of
support from Australian people,
I got my freedom on my birthday.
My name is Mostafa Azimitabar.
I am 34 years old. I am a Kurdish refugee
I was imprisoned,
more than 2,700 days by the Australian government.
This is the second week in my life that
I feel freedom.
I haven't had freedom before in my life.
So happy to see you out and free
and with trees and grass and everything
and Farhad as well,
you look so well.
So that was the last song that you released.
What was the name of it?
How amazing...
I remember the first time I saw Moz was in
Foxtrot, but
we didn't know each other and I didn't
try to connect it to him. But
when I saw him playing guitar
and
thought wow, this guy is a musician.
We become friends in Oscar compound.
Yeah, I remember the first time when I met Farhad,
and he was drawing something and I really
liked his painting
and I started talking.
And we became friends.
I grew up in war.
Even the first day when I was born
the hail of bombs bombarded my city.
It was the melody of my childhood.
When I was child, we had really
bad time because
that time I was born in war
I grow up with the bombs, the sounds of the
screaming of the people.
We just run from the war.
We went to the mountains, we went to the forest.
We were in tents,
like thousand people
they left from the city to get safety.
We spend lots of time without water, without bread or food,
and I remember
when the wind trembled the
tree, oak tree, the sounds of dry oak
from last year, that was kind of music.
I saw the government
are using a crane for hanging
up people.
They were not moving
and I thought that they are dolls,
and I asked
the people who were around me and they said
that they are human beings and I said,
but they are not moving and they said,
because they are dead.
Everything is dead
the chickens, the birds,
the, my mother
and my father, with the birds, with the chicken, with
all of them dead.
My family and I
got traumatised because of the war.
I lost my brother,
he was killed when he was 15.
I still hear the
sound of crying of families
and people because of losing their
children and the members of their families.
I learnt to be friends with my pain.
They massacred us,
they tortured us,
they bombed at us.
They lined hundreds of Kurdish people in line
and they didn't care how old they were,
five years old boy, 10 years
women, children, one by one they
shoot and kill them
There is no rights for people
in the land that I grew up.
I really knew that if I wanted to go
to Australia by boat,
it's like 50%
I can be alive, 50% I can be
a dead person.
But still I felt I have chance
to be alive, because if I got deported
definitely I would be in prison
or killed
in my homeland.
I didn't know how to swim,
I just try to be alive.
I thought 27 years of torture was
finished and I was supposed to
start new life,
but the Australian government
started new life for me
and make the horrible situation worse
than the place that I grew up.
When they exiled me to Manus, the first day
I remembered, we were kept in one room.
120 people from different countries,
different culture.
Everything was dirty,
the spiders
painted the ceiling
with cobwebs.
120 people
close to each other
beside, shoulder by shoulder.
There was no space for breathing.
It was a narrow
way between the beds that the officers
were walking among us.
They called our numbers, KNS-88.
It was my number.
Many times, officers came to the rooms
They smashed everything, they step on our belongings,
they threw out everything
A couple of times, they found
phones, and then it would be very
difficult time for us that
they wanted to
bully us that this is a crime, you are not allowed
to have phones.
I had huge insomnia
when I was on Manus.
I couldn't sleep at all,
sometimes two hours a day,
sometimes three hours a day,
was my sleeping
and every day I had nightmares.
Nightmares were a part of detention.
We went to the mess to eat
lunch and dinner or breakfast.
500 people in small space
wanna eat something.
It's very hot, it's 45 degrees.
Why do we have to be in this line
for hours and hours?
The last 100 refugees who were
on the line couldn't get anything.
This situation made us so unwell.
I could hear the complaining of refugees every day.
Some of them have a stomachache, headaches,
kidney pain, lots of different pains
and the only solution for us was
drinking water and Panadol.
I went to
see a nurse
and
she told me that have you thought about
going back to your country?
And I said that I have a stomach ache.
I need you to help me.
And she said that, I prescribe Panadol.
Whenever I heard about Panadol,
I thought that they are just
making fun of us.
They wanted
to continue this torture in order to
target our resistance
and we give up and we get back to our countries.
The sadness will remain
in Australia,
they cannot
clear
this sadness,
it is a part of this society now.
The most difficult part in detention was
the time that the government left us alone
behind the fences
without any
food, water, security, power, nothing.
A couple of hours ago, PNG police with
(inaudible) officers came inside the compound and threw out
our remaining water.
PNG immigration and PNG police,
and the Navy, they demolished everything.
They are hitting us, they beat us,
so now they want to kill us,
we don't know what to do, we need help.
After 24 days,
a group of like, a cattle of robots
came to the detention
and they wanted to
move us to another place by force.
We were sitting
on the ground
like the way that I am talking with you,
very peaceful,
we didn't say any words.
They started stoning at us,
they started beating us with
iron bars,
lots of police were around us.
One of the police beat my shoulder
with an iron bar. After
a couple of days, I got a stammer.
I still have the stammer
but I know how to control it. It's
very difficult.
I don't know, how can I
forget those memories, it comes to me.
After spending some time working on a campaign for
another refugee, a young sporting refugee.
I decided to go across to Port Morseby to meet
many of the men who'd been imprisoned on
Manus Island.
One of those was Mostafa,
he was emaciated,
he
was constantly coughing.
Why are we torturing this person?
Australia has been told these
things about them and I'm sitting in front of this young
man who we've ripped eight years of his
life away improperly, and he couldn't be more
lovely, he couldn't be more gentle,
he couldn't be more welcoming.
And I asked him if he would play his song
and he started to play and sing beautifully
and just as he was coming to the key line in the chorus,
he broke down coughing.
And you know, this coughing fit
went on forever and I just sat there, you know
embarrassed thinking, wow, you know, this guy is physically
just broken.
Music, I
sometimes play.
These days, it's very difficult
because asthma is killing me.
I don't know how I can survive,
sometimes I feel I am not alive.
When they exiled me
and others to Manus Island,
the feeling was really
sad when I saw this
small island, it's a
remote island actually,
so we trapped
forever.
There is only two seasons in Manus Island,
it's hot and wet,
and you get a sweat every day,
every day, every night, you couldn't sleep
your body, your mind is shocked.
Their treatment
of us was degrading.
They humiliated us
every single day for years.
You should go back to your country, non refugee.
Many of them they come to me and
always I encouraged them: be strong.
There is something inside you,
you need to find it.
From one detention to another detention.
From one country
to another country,
from one prison to another prison
for the government,
we were just human cargo.
I came 2019 to Australia
for medical treatment under Medevac bill.
There wasn't any fresh air, sunshine
For three months I had to fight for this
basic human right.
Finally they opened the
window this size.
I was kept in the Mantra and Park prisons
for approximately 15 months.
My life was a room and a
narrow corridor.
23 hours a day I was
locked up in a room.
I got a terrible PTSD
from Manus.
I don't like
any people like police officers,
come and touch my body. The officers
in the Mantra prison and
the park prison, they did pat searched my
body more than 400 times.
Guard: Like we said just a pat down search mate.
Guard: You understand that no problems?
Well, I just talked with
them that I don't like to have pat search, but because I
have to visit my friends.
Guard: Yep
Guard: It's part of the procedure, hop around for me,
I know
no hands sure, but I will take the video
Guard: Do whatever you want
na.. na.. na
Guard: I tell you what guys, I tell you what guys
Guard: We will take him to escort
Guard: We'll take him
Guard: That's fine. That's fine, we'll take him.
Guard: Can you just put you hands on the wall
Guard: like this, and you just take one shoe off
Guard: show me the bottom of your feet.
I don't want to take off my shoes
Guard: You don't have to put your feet on the floor.
Guard: I need to see underneath your feet.
Guard: Just put like this.
They treat us like we are nothing.
Even wild animal has rights,
even criminals has rights,
what about a refugee?
Among all chaotic situation,
lot's of torture
lack of
humanity...
The behavior of officers over there,
those things were horrible.
I just try to find
tranquility for myself.
I try to be kind to myself.
Art helped me
to continue.
Art helped me to be strong.
I didn't want
to escape, I wanted to fight in this situation.
No, you cannot escape from the
situation when you are there, but you can be there and
fight.
It's like battle,
always I say, this is a battle, you need to fight for it.
If you escape. It means you want to
cover your eyes, you cannot see it, but
I was carrying the pain with myself and
at the same time,
I fight with my art against this cruelty.
Always, art, music
it's part of my resistance.
Without those I couldn't really survive.
I think painting is
a kind of friend for my soul.
When I was in detention, it took me
to freedom,
it took my soul to freedom.
Imagine for
eight years, every day, immigration, case managers,
security officers,
you cannot come to Australia.
I accepted in my
soul that it's my life,
I know that, outside this place,
people have normal lives
but also
I should understand that, this is my life,
I'm not gonna be free
but also, I don't want to give up.
So every time
I talk to myself, it will be okay.
It's all
nightmares
I don't know when it's gonna be
my day, but one day will be my day.
And I'll be free.
Wine in Kurdish
culture has a meaning.
I think it's kind of sharing love.
You have a bottle of wine you want to share with friends,
which means brings everyone together.
And you want to share the happiness with wine.
In Kurdistan
it's not allowed but many people they
make it from home and they drink it secretly.
You cannot drink it in public.
I remember when I make wine,
I call my friends...
I have some wine, I can share it with you.
It's so exciting.
This is the first
wine I am making
in Australia.
Today we're gonna press
"Time to Fly" shiraz wine
and I just taste it
I'm very happy with it. The tannins and
flavour. It's nice and it's
about 70 days now,
the fermentation.
Time to Fly, means...
time to fly! You need to be free
and this design
it's about when I was on Manus Island,
it's gonna be surprise for
first for my family and my friends
and I would love to share this wine with
Australian people.
In Kurdistan, in Iran side
you are not allowed even to
write in your language.
And you cannot practice your culture,
and even you cannot talk about your history.
and if you go to a school, you cannot talk in your language,
not Kurdish. Not your mother tongue,
And we are Indigenous there.
We are the owner of that land
and we cannot raise our flag and say,
we are here for thousands and thousands of years.
Congratulations!
Thank you, cheers
I hope it's.. it's a long way to go
before you got to sell it, but
a lot of water's gone under the bridge.
to get here. How do you feel?
Yeah, I feel
so excited.
Imagine how you gonna feel when it goes to bottle!
I cannot wait.
Then the headaches begin.
The making it's the easy part.
Yeah, actually with
your support.
There are some good people around.
Yeah, always
Thank you.
Well, here's to you.
Thank you. Cheers.
Amazing journey.
Yeah.
Thanks
Good
I'm really happy to see you
you're still strong, I like it
I'm trying bro, I'm still trying
Yeah
But it's hard, very hard time
You didn't do anything wrong
You're just looking for safety and your freedom
You are a good man.
I know I understand
That's what we need from you
Thank you buddy
Thank you, be strong
I love you bro
I need you
to have the biggest smile, always
Yes, that's the face
That's the resistance
That's the way you fight for your freedom
Thank you
Thank you
Have a good night
see ya
Love you
see ya
So they're caught in this interminable hell
where all of these things
are set up in order to, to terrorise
them so much that they
basically give up either on life, or give up
on trying to find refuge.
Just imagine that
from an Australian perspective for a moment.
The most vulnerable people in the world
have to actually flee, have been
proven to have fled persecution, which means
imprisonment, attacks, death.
And we've treated them so badly,
that actually some of them ultimately decide,
I'll just take my chances
with my own government back home,
which means I likely to lose my life
but if I stay here it's gone anyway. That's the
bargain that we try to strike with them.
The way we treat the most vulnerable infects all
of our view of who we are
and how we treat each other.
If we were to become,
and should be, a country where we say:
we are going to treat everyone
with basic standards of decency.
When we do that as a country, everyone is uplifted,
everyone is more hopeful, everyone becomes
more caring, more considerate
and isn't that what society is supposed to be?
I was in prison more than
2,700 days by the
Australian government but my message
to you wonderful people is love,
and I believe that love
is the answer. This is the way that we can
kill the monsters.
I am asking you to listen to your heart
so that together, we can
create a wave of change that will tear down
the walls of the Park prison and other
detention centres and free our brothers
and sisters.
Still there
are many behind the fences.
They haven't committed any crime.
It doesn't make sense. They should be free.
No children should be behind the fences.
No any women
should be behind their fences. They are not criminals.
The government spent billions of dollars
to keep them inside the detention
and separate them from the society and
the government want to show that,
these people are bad, these people are good,
refugees are dangerous, Aboriginal
different, they just want to separate
and create
layer of discrimination.
When people get depressed, when
they want to kill themselves,
when they want to harm themselves,
they think that they are alone.
It's like a responsibility
for everyone that
help vulnerable people
to be strong
and show them that
they are not alone.
You helped me, to
get the voice and and send it to people in Australia.
You gave me power, I felt that this is
something that I have to keep it for everyone,
it's not for me, it's for everyone.
The more I got tortured from the government,
the more I became friends with people in Australia.
A big part of
my resilience and the way I got
free is absolutely because of people in Australia.
And now
I have a big family.
It makes me so happy.
Hello!
Oh, it is you
It is, It is, It is.
Oh.
Hello!
This is magic
This is absolute magic
I can't believe it.
Oh my darling,
oh, my precious boys
wonderful
and now I see you free!
I cannot believe it.
You are my first Australian friend.
You are very kind
amazing.
Wonderful.
If you remember my English was poor on Manus Island.
I asked you to help me with English
I had to rewrite your poems.
Yes
It was all about poetry.
I've got a book here somewhere
here, with
me trying to learn your language.
Wow
Kurdish language
Wow.
Yes, it's
all your poetry's in here,
your very first poems in this little book.
Yes, its the most extraordinary thing to come across,
these
young men who have been through hell,
suddenly appearing and being real people.
Yes, just beautiful, wonderful thing to
make that connection
Yeah, very deciding thing in life
of what your values are when something like this
comes and hits you.
You've got to get in there and do something.
Thank you for all your support
and all your activism for
all of us. Thank you.
Well, you're very, very, very welcome.
You keep collecting my poetry
oh my god
Yeah, I'm honoured to be that person
to publish your poems one day.
Well, if you do it and I don't do it, that's okay,
I'm just never going to do it myself.
I love your poems, that's why
and of course you are beautiful, kind
and you help me
a lot.
The first poem written by Farhad Bandesh
in 2015.
He wrote it after finding me on Facebook.
All his creative skills came into play
and kept him mentally and spiritually healthy.
"Silence of Nature"
That was a powerful poem you wrote.
Thank you.
Was it the first poem you ever wrote at all?
Yeah, that's the first, I couldn't
believe it, you said no, this is a good,
this is a good one.
this is a poem.
Well, do you know the words you said
that struck me most deeply
were the two words, "woven oppression".
Yeah.
That was fantastically original
I'd never seen, oppression woven before,
but it was it was woven through
you all.
Woven into your blood, woven into your
brains,
deliberately.
God that describes what was done to you all so deeply
and so well.
Yeah.
It was just an extremely important experience
of knowing what
lack of freedom does to a human being.
The utter cruelty of it.
It was today, last year
one year ago.
How is the feeling now, compared to then?
I think
it's perfect
It was like a nightmare
everything is beautiful
I couldn't see any kind of flower or
trees.
Now I can see everything.
The first time I talked with Christina was
a week after the seige
when police attacked us
on Manus
and I had stammer, I couldn't talk.
and she introduced herself
my name is Christina ..., I am a trauma councillor
I know your story
I heard about what happened to you and other refugees
I'm here to help you
don't worry I understand
what was
In the past, but you will be ok,
just be patient
and slowly
she talked to me, like a lullaby
I couldn't talk with my family
no friends.
I got very isolated.
It was a huge
trauma, when I talk...
all the time stammer
and she said, don't worry, you dont need to talk.
You just say yes or no
or you just nod your head.
or you just say mhmm.
and slowly, slowly I got better
and she said, Manus is not safe for you.
There is a reason you have to be alive.
Just be proud of yourself and be happy.
You are a survivor Moz.
You dont die.
I miss her so much.
Moz, dont worry about me, I'm sorry, I'm just
I've either got pain in my back
or then when I take tablets. I feel really drowsy
and I have to lay down.
In 2019 she called me
and she said um,
she's going to be alive for a few weeks.
Her doctor talked to her and she said, just a few weeks.
and I didn't know what does that mean.
What does a few weeks mean.
I remember
her daughter Molly called me
and she said mum is ready
and I had a huge stress
and I just grabbed the guitar.
I wrote a song for Christina
and I played it for her
I think, six or seven times.
The last time when I played it for her
she slept.
What a sad day.
Imagine the best friend
in anyones life, especially me in that situation
but know when I look at
what happened in the past, I think
sometimes
someone comes to our lives
just like an angel.
Yeah, she was definitely an angel
and she saved my life.
Love you to bits
We liked it first, and then we share it with
other refugees. We had many concerts, small concerts
and we played it
a lot, and the people really liked it.
This song took us to somewhere else from the detention.
There were different nationalities among refugees.
Bengali, Somalian, Sudanese, Iraqi
Kurdish.
Most of the time when we played music together,
some of them randomly came close to us
and listen to the music and they
clapped and we were happy about it.
This is the beauty of the art always, eliminates
the borders and makes everyone become united
and there is no any difference.
When you listen to Kurdish music
takes you to somewhere.
When I listen to English, Spanish takes me to somewhere
I could feel it inside, it doesn't matter
I don't understand the words, but I understand
the feeling of the music.
That's the beauty of art and music.
Hello?
What's happening fellas?
Hey Nick
Hi, nice to meet you.
Likewise.
Welcome.
Thanks.
Hi Nick.
Hello Buddy
Good to see you again.
You too.
Welcome.
Thank you...
Ready to record a song?
Ready to go.
Your version B...
This is one of the songs, always we sing.
Do you remember?
Yeah
This song it's really
common song in Kurdistan.
It's a beautiful song.
How did it go?
You wanna go?
Ok.
I forgot.
I'm gonna tell you some story.
When I was on Manus Island, the people
call me 'Lion' Farhad.
And I don't know why they call me
maybe I was tough and really strong.
from Jakarta to Christmas Island
We were like 65 people
with families, some kids.
Everyone is sleeping, someone vomiting
in the edge of the
fisher boat.
Big wave came
half of my body was under the ocean.
I could see there is a rope.
And I hold it.
I grabbed it and no one knew.
I survived from that time
and I came back, said wow
So I will be alive.
There was something inside
and I believe that one day I will be free.
I didn't know they're gonna exile us
to Manus and Nauru for six years.
I was there for six years.
And then they transferred me
to Australia for medical help.
Still I am suffering from the pain and what happened to me
but I am a still strong, I am still the lion.
My life was the size of a room
for years and years.
I think it was a miracle
that I survived.
All those years that I was in detention
was like a nightmare.
Torture after torture.
I didn't want to get angry.
I wanted to be kind to myself.
I decided to keep my smile.
And I wanted to be a person
for people who don't have voice.
I learned to be patient.
I learned to become friends with music,
with painting.
When I got my freedom
I felt I have a new sense.
I felt that I have a pair of wings
and I'm gonna fly.
We will decide
who comes to this country and the circumstances
in which they come.
After rescuing more than 400 muslim asylum seekers,
no one could have predicted the
dramatic sea change ahead.
From now on, any asylum seeker who arrives in
Australia by boat will have no chance of being settled in
Australia as refugees.
The boats, the boats
will be stopped.
You have been brought to this place here because you
have sought to illegally enter Australia, by boat.
Persons transferred to regional processing centers
will not be settled in this country and the
position of this government will not change.
Are you saying that unaccompanied minors would be better off
in detention?
The Australian government forbids journalists
from filming or interviewing detainees at its camps.
This policy has been incredibly dehumanising.
It's like this is a horrible human
experiment that has no end.
The Guardian newspaper has been leaked more than 2,000
incident reports from Australia's Nauru detention camp.
The sexual assault of young children, the physical assault
of young children, the deleterious impact
of detention on children,
suicide attempts by children, self-harm attempts
and we've seen that continue.
We have been denied
our basic needs, water and food and electricity.
That does not mean that we are going to surrender.
We have been in this place for four and a half years
and we have not committed in any crime.
We are asking the international community
to rescue us from this disaster.
We have been struggling with
starvation.
I would like to say
and send this clear message to the government.
We only want freedom in
a safe country and it is a clear message.
What do we want?!
Freedom!
Nobody should ever doubt the resolve of
this government to keep our borders secure.
They won't be
you know, numerate or literate
in their own language, let alone English.
Until now there has been a long lengthy delay,
there has been almost obsessive legal intervention
to try and stop people who are ill from
being transferred over to Australia
for the care that they need.
This is going to be able
to get spivs and rapists
and murderers onto our shores.
The bill says serious crimes
would preclude that, that's wrong what you said,
you admit that?
What Labor says and what Labor...
What the bill says. I'm sorry, you've got to be factual
when you make the case.
I will do everything in my power to
ensure that these suggested changes that
would undermine our border protection laws never see
the light of day.
You're suggesting that they're almost, all of them are ill.
The bottom line is Barry, we're not prepared to weaken
border protection like Labor is
That's not the point, can you explain to me
how it is, that it's got to the point where almost all of
them are ill?
The point is Barry, we've stopped the boats.
Because of temporary protection visas
That's not an answer to that question
because of... offshore...
because of boat turn backs...
Hello Craig, I'm walking in the corridor
in the Park prison.
It's a very proud moment of my life
today, I'm gonna share with you.
I'm gonna be free very soon
I'm very excited and I just
wanted to tell you that, thank you very much for
all your amazing support
and thanks, all of you people.
I cannot believe it
I cannot.. yeah
this morning I call you, I'm going to be free.
Finally.
My name is Farhad Bandesh
I'm a Kurdish refugee.
Seven and half years of my life
I lost it for no reason.
Fortunately with lots of
support from Australian people,
I got my freedom on my birthday.
My name is Mostafa Azimitabar.
I am 34 years old. I am a Kurdish refugee
I was imprisoned,
more than 2,700 days by the Australian government.
This is the second week in my life that
I feel freedom.
I haven't had freedom before in my life.
So happy to see you out and free
and with trees and grass and everything
and Farhad as well,
you look so well.
So that was the last song that you released.
What was the name of it?
How amazing...
I remember the first time I saw Moz was in
Foxtrot, but
we didn't know each other and I didn't
try to connect it to him. But
when I saw him playing guitar
and
thought wow, this guy is a musician.
We become friends in Oscar compound.
Yeah, I remember the first time when I met Farhad,
and he was drawing something and I really
liked his painting
and I started talking.
And we became friends.
I grew up in war.
Even the first day when I was born
the hail of bombs bombarded my city.
It was the melody of my childhood.
When I was child, we had really
bad time because
that time I was born in war
I grow up with the bombs, the sounds of the
screaming of the people.
We just run from the war.
We went to the mountains, we went to the forest.
We were in tents,
like thousand people
they left from the city to get safety.
We spend lots of time without water, without bread or food,
and I remember
when the wind trembled the
tree, oak tree, the sounds of dry oak
from last year, that was kind of music.
I saw the government
are using a crane for hanging
up people.
They were not moving
and I thought that they are dolls,
and I asked
the people who were around me and they said
that they are human beings and I said,
but they are not moving and they said,
because they are dead.
Everything is dead
the chickens, the birds,
the, my mother
and my father, with the birds, with the chicken, with
all of them dead.
My family and I
got traumatised because of the war.
I lost my brother,
he was killed when he was 15.
I still hear the
sound of crying of families
and people because of losing their
children and the members of their families.
I learnt to be friends with my pain.
They massacred us,
they tortured us,
they bombed at us.
They lined hundreds of Kurdish people in line
and they didn't care how old they were,
five years old boy, 10 years
women, children, one by one they
shoot and kill them
There is no rights for people
in the land that I grew up.
I really knew that if I wanted to go
to Australia by boat,
it's like 50%
I can be alive, 50% I can be
a dead person.
But still I felt I have chance
to be alive, because if I got deported
definitely I would be in prison
or killed
in my homeland.
I didn't know how to swim,
I just try to be alive.
I thought 27 years of torture was
finished and I was supposed to
start new life,
but the Australian government
started new life for me
and make the horrible situation worse
than the place that I grew up.
When they exiled me to Manus, the first day
I remembered, we were kept in one room.
120 people from different countries,
different culture.
Everything was dirty,
the spiders
painted the ceiling
with cobwebs.
120 people
close to each other
beside, shoulder by shoulder.
There was no space for breathing.
It was a narrow
way between the beds that the officers
were walking among us.
They called our numbers, KNS-88.
It was my number.
Many times, officers came to the rooms
They smashed everything, they step on our belongings,
they threw out everything
A couple of times, they found
phones, and then it would be very
difficult time for us that
they wanted to
bully us that this is a crime, you are not allowed
to have phones.
I had huge insomnia
when I was on Manus.
I couldn't sleep at all,
sometimes two hours a day,
sometimes three hours a day,
was my sleeping
and every day I had nightmares.
Nightmares were a part of detention.
We went to the mess to eat
lunch and dinner or breakfast.
500 people in small space
wanna eat something.
It's very hot, it's 45 degrees.
Why do we have to be in this line
for hours and hours?
The last 100 refugees who were
on the line couldn't get anything.
This situation made us so unwell.
I could hear the complaining of refugees every day.
Some of them have a stomachache, headaches,
kidney pain, lots of different pains
and the only solution for us was
drinking water and Panadol.
I went to
see a nurse
and
she told me that have you thought about
going back to your country?
And I said that I have a stomach ache.
I need you to help me.
And she said that, I prescribe Panadol.
Whenever I heard about Panadol,
I thought that they are just
making fun of us.
They wanted
to continue this torture in order to
target our resistance
and we give up and we get back to our countries.
The sadness will remain
in Australia,
they cannot
clear
this sadness,
it is a part of this society now.
The most difficult part in detention was
the time that the government left us alone
behind the fences
without any
food, water, security, power, nothing.
A couple of hours ago, PNG police with
(inaudible) officers came inside the compound and threw out
our remaining water.
PNG immigration and PNG police,
and the Navy, they demolished everything.
They are hitting us, they beat us,
so now they want to kill us,
we don't know what to do, we need help.
After 24 days,
a group of like, a cattle of robots
came to the detention
and they wanted to
move us to another place by force.
We were sitting
on the ground
like the way that I am talking with you,
very peaceful,
we didn't say any words.
They started stoning at us,
they started beating us with
iron bars,
lots of police were around us.
One of the police beat my shoulder
with an iron bar. After
a couple of days, I got a stammer.
I still have the stammer
but I know how to control it. It's
very difficult.
I don't know, how can I
forget those memories, it comes to me.
After spending some time working on a campaign for
another refugee, a young sporting refugee.
I decided to go across to Port Morseby to meet
many of the men who'd been imprisoned on
Manus Island.
One of those was Mostafa,
he was emaciated,
he
was constantly coughing.
Why are we torturing this person?
Australia has been told these
things about them and I'm sitting in front of this young
man who we've ripped eight years of his
life away improperly, and he couldn't be more
lovely, he couldn't be more gentle,
he couldn't be more welcoming.
And I asked him if he would play his song
and he started to play and sing beautifully
and just as he was coming to the key line in the chorus,
he broke down coughing.
And you know, this coughing fit
went on forever and I just sat there, you know
embarrassed thinking, wow, you know, this guy is physically
just broken.
Music, I
sometimes play.
These days, it's very difficult
because asthma is killing me.
I don't know how I can survive,
sometimes I feel I am not alive.
When they exiled me
and others to Manus Island,
the feeling was really
sad when I saw this
small island, it's a
remote island actually,
so we trapped
forever.
There is only two seasons in Manus Island,
it's hot and wet,
and you get a sweat every day,
every day, every night, you couldn't sleep
your body, your mind is shocked.
Their treatment
of us was degrading.
They humiliated us
every single day for years.
You should go back to your country, non refugee.
Many of them they come to me and
always I encouraged them: be strong.
There is something inside you,
you need to find it.
From one detention to another detention.
From one country
to another country,
from one prison to another prison
for the government,
we were just human cargo.
I came 2019 to Australia
for medical treatment under Medevac bill.
There wasn't any fresh air, sunshine
For three months I had to fight for this
basic human right.
Finally they opened the
window this size.
I was kept in the Mantra and Park prisons
for approximately 15 months.
My life was a room and a
narrow corridor.
23 hours a day I was
locked up in a room.
I got a terrible PTSD
from Manus.
I don't like
any people like police officers,
come and touch my body. The officers
in the Mantra prison and
the park prison, they did pat searched my
body more than 400 times.
Guard: Like we said just a pat down search mate.
Guard: You understand that no problems?
Well, I just talked with
them that I don't like to have pat search, but because I
have to visit my friends.
Guard: Yep
Guard: It's part of the procedure, hop around for me,
I know
no hands sure, but I will take the video
Guard: Do whatever you want
na.. na.. na
Guard: I tell you what guys, I tell you what guys
Guard: We will take him to escort
Guard: We'll take him
Guard: That's fine. That's fine, we'll take him.
Guard: Can you just put you hands on the wall
Guard: like this, and you just take one shoe off
Guard: show me the bottom of your feet.
I don't want to take off my shoes
Guard: You don't have to put your feet on the floor.
Guard: I need to see underneath your feet.
Guard: Just put like this.
They treat us like we are nothing.
Even wild animal has rights,
even criminals has rights,
what about a refugee?
Among all chaotic situation,
lot's of torture
lack of
humanity...
The behavior of officers over there,
those things were horrible.
I just try to find
tranquility for myself.
I try to be kind to myself.
Art helped me
to continue.
Art helped me to be strong.
I didn't want
to escape, I wanted to fight in this situation.
No, you cannot escape from the
situation when you are there, but you can be there and
fight.
It's like battle,
always I say, this is a battle, you need to fight for it.
If you escape. It means you want to
cover your eyes, you cannot see it, but
I was carrying the pain with myself and
at the same time,
I fight with my art against this cruelty.
Always, art, music
it's part of my resistance.
Without those I couldn't really survive.
I think painting is
a kind of friend for my soul.
When I was in detention, it took me
to freedom,
it took my soul to freedom.
Imagine for
eight years, every day, immigration, case managers,
security officers,
you cannot come to Australia.
I accepted in my
soul that it's my life,
I know that, outside this place,
people have normal lives
but also
I should understand that, this is my life,
I'm not gonna be free
but also, I don't want to give up.
So every time
I talk to myself, it will be okay.
It's all
nightmares
I don't know when it's gonna be
my day, but one day will be my day.
And I'll be free.
Wine in Kurdish
culture has a meaning.
I think it's kind of sharing love.
You have a bottle of wine you want to share with friends,
which means brings everyone together.
And you want to share the happiness with wine.
In Kurdistan
it's not allowed but many people they
make it from home and they drink it secretly.
You cannot drink it in public.
I remember when I make wine,
I call my friends...
I have some wine, I can share it with you.
It's so exciting.
This is the first
wine I am making
in Australia.
Today we're gonna press
"Time to Fly" shiraz wine
and I just taste it
I'm very happy with it. The tannins and
flavour. It's nice and it's
about 70 days now,
the fermentation.
Time to Fly, means...
time to fly! You need to be free
and this design
it's about when I was on Manus Island,
it's gonna be surprise for
first for my family and my friends
and I would love to share this wine with
Australian people.
In Kurdistan, in Iran side
you are not allowed even to
write in your language.
And you cannot practice your culture,
and even you cannot talk about your history.
and if you go to a school, you cannot talk in your language,
not Kurdish. Not your mother tongue,
And we are Indigenous there.
We are the owner of that land
and we cannot raise our flag and say,
we are here for thousands and thousands of years.
Congratulations!
Thank you, cheers
I hope it's.. it's a long way to go
before you got to sell it, but
a lot of water's gone under the bridge.
to get here. How do you feel?
Yeah, I feel
so excited.
Imagine how you gonna feel when it goes to bottle!
I cannot wait.
Then the headaches begin.
The making it's the easy part.
Yeah, actually with
your support.
There are some good people around.
Yeah, always
Thank you.
Well, here's to you.
Thank you. Cheers.
Amazing journey.
Yeah.
Thanks
Good
I'm really happy to see you
you're still strong, I like it
I'm trying bro, I'm still trying
Yeah
But it's hard, very hard time
You didn't do anything wrong
You're just looking for safety and your freedom
You are a good man.
I know I understand
That's what we need from you
Thank you buddy
Thank you, be strong
I love you bro
I need you
to have the biggest smile, always
Yes, that's the face
That's the resistance
That's the way you fight for your freedom
Thank you
Thank you
Have a good night
see ya
Love you
see ya
So they're caught in this interminable hell
where all of these things
are set up in order to, to terrorise
them so much that they
basically give up either on life, or give up
on trying to find refuge.
Just imagine that
from an Australian perspective for a moment.
The most vulnerable people in the world
have to actually flee, have been
proven to have fled persecution, which means
imprisonment, attacks, death.
And we've treated them so badly,
that actually some of them ultimately decide,
I'll just take my chances
with my own government back home,
which means I likely to lose my life
but if I stay here it's gone anyway. That's the
bargain that we try to strike with them.
The way we treat the most vulnerable infects all
of our view of who we are
and how we treat each other.
If we were to become,
and should be, a country where we say:
we are going to treat everyone
with basic standards of decency.
When we do that as a country, everyone is uplifted,
everyone is more hopeful, everyone becomes
more caring, more considerate
and isn't that what society is supposed to be?
I was in prison more than
2,700 days by the
Australian government but my message
to you wonderful people is love,
and I believe that love
is the answer. This is the way that we can
kill the monsters.
I am asking you to listen to your heart
so that together, we can
create a wave of change that will tear down
the walls of the Park prison and other
detention centres and free our brothers
and sisters.
Still there
are many behind the fences.
They haven't committed any crime.
It doesn't make sense. They should be free.
No children should be behind the fences.
No any women
should be behind their fences. They are not criminals.
The government spent billions of dollars
to keep them inside the detention
and separate them from the society and
the government want to show that,
these people are bad, these people are good,
refugees are dangerous, Aboriginal
different, they just want to separate
and create
layer of discrimination.
When people get depressed, when
they want to kill themselves,
when they want to harm themselves,
they think that they are alone.
It's like a responsibility
for everyone that
help vulnerable people
to be strong
and show them that
they are not alone.
You helped me, to
get the voice and and send it to people in Australia.
You gave me power, I felt that this is
something that I have to keep it for everyone,
it's not for me, it's for everyone.
The more I got tortured from the government,
the more I became friends with people in Australia.
A big part of
my resilience and the way I got
free is absolutely because of people in Australia.
And now
I have a big family.
It makes me so happy.
Hello!
Oh, it is you
It is, It is, It is.
Oh.
Hello!
This is magic
This is absolute magic
I can't believe it.
Oh my darling,
oh, my precious boys
wonderful
and now I see you free!
I cannot believe it.
You are my first Australian friend.
You are very kind
amazing.
Wonderful.
If you remember my English was poor on Manus Island.
I asked you to help me with English
I had to rewrite your poems.
Yes
It was all about poetry.
I've got a book here somewhere
here, with
me trying to learn your language.
Wow
Kurdish language
Wow.
Yes, it's
all your poetry's in here,
your very first poems in this little book.
Yes, its the most extraordinary thing to come across,
these
young men who have been through hell,
suddenly appearing and being real people.
Yes, just beautiful, wonderful thing to
make that connection
Yeah, very deciding thing in life
of what your values are when something like this
comes and hits you.
You've got to get in there and do something.
Thank you for all your support
and all your activism for
all of us. Thank you.
Well, you're very, very, very welcome.
You keep collecting my poetry
oh my god
Yeah, I'm honoured to be that person
to publish your poems one day.
Well, if you do it and I don't do it, that's okay,
I'm just never going to do it myself.
I love your poems, that's why
and of course you are beautiful, kind
and you help me
a lot.
The first poem written by Farhad Bandesh
in 2015.
He wrote it after finding me on Facebook.
All his creative skills came into play
and kept him mentally and spiritually healthy.
"Silence of Nature"
That was a powerful poem you wrote.
Thank you.
Was it the first poem you ever wrote at all?
Yeah, that's the first, I couldn't
believe it, you said no, this is a good,
this is a good one.
this is a poem.
Well, do you know the words you said
that struck me most deeply
were the two words, "woven oppression".
Yeah.
That was fantastically original
I'd never seen, oppression woven before,
but it was it was woven through
you all.
Woven into your blood, woven into your
brains,
deliberately.
God that describes what was done to you all so deeply
and so well.
Yeah.
It was just an extremely important experience
of knowing what
lack of freedom does to a human being.
The utter cruelty of it.
It was today, last year
one year ago.
How is the feeling now, compared to then?
I think
it's perfect
It was like a nightmare
everything is beautiful
I couldn't see any kind of flower or
trees.
Now I can see everything.
The first time I talked with Christina was
a week after the seige
when police attacked us
on Manus
and I had stammer, I couldn't talk.
and she introduced herself
my name is Christina ..., I am a trauma councillor
I know your story
I heard about what happened to you and other refugees
I'm here to help you
don't worry I understand
what was
In the past, but you will be ok,
just be patient
and slowly
she talked to me, like a lullaby
I couldn't talk with my family
no friends.
I got very isolated.
It was a huge
trauma, when I talk...
all the time stammer
and she said, don't worry, you dont need to talk.
You just say yes or no
or you just nod your head.
or you just say mhmm.
and slowly, slowly I got better
and she said, Manus is not safe for you.
There is a reason you have to be alive.
Just be proud of yourself and be happy.
You are a survivor Moz.
You dont die.
I miss her so much.
Moz, dont worry about me, I'm sorry, I'm just
I've either got pain in my back
or then when I take tablets. I feel really drowsy
and I have to lay down.
In 2019 she called me
and she said um,
she's going to be alive for a few weeks.
Her doctor talked to her and she said, just a few weeks.
and I didn't know what does that mean.
What does a few weeks mean.
I remember
her daughter Molly called me
and she said mum is ready
and I had a huge stress
and I just grabbed the guitar.
I wrote a song for Christina
and I played it for her
I think, six or seven times.
The last time when I played it for her
she slept.
What a sad day.
Imagine the best friend
in anyones life, especially me in that situation
but know when I look at
what happened in the past, I think
sometimes
someone comes to our lives
just like an angel.
Yeah, she was definitely an angel
and she saved my life.
Love you to bits
We liked it first, and then we share it with
other refugees. We had many concerts, small concerts
and we played it
a lot, and the people really liked it.
This song took us to somewhere else from the detention.
There were different nationalities among refugees.
Bengali, Somalian, Sudanese, Iraqi
Kurdish.
Most of the time when we played music together,
some of them randomly came close to us
and listen to the music and they
clapped and we were happy about it.
This is the beauty of the art always, eliminates
the borders and makes everyone become united
and there is no any difference.
When you listen to Kurdish music
takes you to somewhere.
When I listen to English, Spanish takes me to somewhere
I could feel it inside, it doesn't matter
I don't understand the words, but I understand
the feeling of the music.
That's the beauty of art and music.
Hello?
What's happening fellas?
Hey Nick
Hi, nice to meet you.
Likewise.
Welcome.
Thanks.
Hi Nick.
Hello Buddy
Good to see you again.
You too.
Welcome.
Thank you...
Ready to record a song?
Ready to go.
Your version B...
This is one of the songs, always we sing.
Do you remember?
Yeah
This song it's really
common song in Kurdistan.
It's a beautiful song.
How did it go?
You wanna go?
Ok.
I forgot.