Smuggled Phone, Stolen Voices: He Turned Trauma into a Global Call for Justice
Play & learn about Behrouz Boochani's arty refugee experience 🎮
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Back Story
Behrouz Boochani is a journalist, writer, and human rights activist. Born in 1983 to a Kurdish family in Ilam, Iran, he began his journalism career at university, writing for newspapers. He later founded Werya, a bilingual Kurdish-Persian magazine dedicated to preserving Kurdish culture and identity. Iranian authorities deemed this a “deviant movement,” arresting Werya’s members and forcing Boochani to flee to Southeast Asia.
While attempting to seek asylum in Australia by boat from Indonesia, Boochani was intercepted by the Australian Navy and sent to the offshore detention center on Manus Island, where he was imprisoned from 2013 to 2019. There, he endured inhumane treatment, including humiliation and abuse. Determined to expose the conditions inside the camp, he bribed a guard to obtain a secret mobile phone, using WhatsApp to document human rights violations. He relayed this information to news outlets like The Guardian, even while still imprisoned.
In 2018, Boochani compiled his experiences into No Friend but the Mountains, a book blending poetry and prose to reveal the brutal reality of life as a refugee in offshore detention. He also used his phone to film Chauka, Please Tell Us the Time, a documentary capturing daily life in the camp.
In 2019, Boochani traveled to New Zealand for a literary festival and was granted refugee status, allowing him to remain indefinitely. He continues to write about his own experiences and advocate for Iranian refugees through articles, books, and plays. In 2022, he published Freedom, Only Freedom, a collection of personal reflections alongside essays from human rights activists, political figures, and writers.
In this post Nyika highlights the arty refugee experience of Behrouz Boochani. She is a citizen journalist on a placement with us organised by Oxford University Career Services. She also organised the micro game to make the journalistic experience interactive.
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