Nauroze Anees has been held in arbitrary detention since October 2016. After arriving in Australia as a student in 2007, Nauroze lived in Australia as an active participant of society. In 2011 Nauroze was imprisoned for three months, for ‘recklessly causing injury’ while defending his partner in a café in Melbourne. After his release from prison Nauroze applied for a partner visa, was denied and was send directly to detention. Since then Nauroze has lived in detention under no charge.
“The life is pretty depressing. You can’t have visitors right now, since March the Australian border force have banned visits until further notice because of Coronavirus. So literally you wake up, I mean in my case I write. I probably go to sleep between 10:30 at night and wake up at 8, so I occupy myself by writing and going to the gym, and just to keep yourself as healthy as you can because unfortunately in detention everything is trying to kill you or trying to make you more depressed” Says Nauroze.
So, it is almost as if you are in a war-zone and you only have yourself to look out for yourself. I usually spend time with other detainees trying to motivate them and there are a lot of people who have resigned from life – especially that experience I had a Yongah Hill, where one of the detainees who was begging for help from the medical service provider, and they refused him help and then he killed himself” Says Nauroze.
If not just for the physical restraints of detention, the toll on detainee’s mental health’s is strenuous. Self-harm and suicide are rife, which is no surprise. Being held in indifferent detention is a mass breach of human rights, one that causes lifetime trauma on the detainee.
“One of the biggest issues with arbitrary detention is you find it hard to relate. Like other people, like your friends, are finding it hard to relate to it because nobody else has been through that experience. So you have to be your own saviour, your own best friend, and you have to learn to enjoy your own company because there is nobody else in detention, just you.
If you live long enough in detention everything plays in your head, like all your life from your childhood to your teenage and everything. When you are in arbitrary detention, every single relationship you’ve had in your life, every single friendship, every single encounter – you feel responsible. If you’ve done something wrong in a relationship, even if you haven’t done anything wrong you feel responsible for everything. So it’s like it’s a house on fire, but you’re trapped in it. You can’t leave” Says Nauroze.
Recently there was a push to remove mobile phones from detainees. Mobile phones are a lifeline, the only personal form of communication to the outside world. By silencing detainees by removing phones, the government is silencing the truth about what happens inside. Nauroze has been incredibly vocal about a number of injustices happening within detention, such as sexual assault and bribery. These wrongdoings would not have been public knowledge, if it were not for people like Nauroze reporting from the inside.
“This government tries to wipe all kinds of accountability, this government does not like freedom of expression and this government definitely does not like someone like me exposing the inhumanity in detention centres.
For the first two years of my detention I did not have a mobile phone, I wasn’t allowed to have one, in 2018 there was a class action in the Federal Court and the judges said that immigration can’t actually confiscate our mobiles because we are not to be seen as prisoners, we have not ceded our civil liberties, so they gave the mobiles back and that’s when I started writing and that’s when the Australian people started to realise that they’ve been told lies by this government, that these people are dangerous aliens who are going to kill you all or something like that, and they started to see the human face of suffering in this hellhole. Since that the crimes committed by Australia in these detention centres started to make news and started to come to limelight – that is why now this government wants to pass the legislation where the minster can take away mobile phones once again, to censor our freedom of expression and to hide their crimes of humanity in here” Says Nauroze.
In current Australia it is merely not enough to criticise our government for their actions – with the power of voting and democracy it is possible for the Australian government to instigate change. Nauroze emphasis the power of a vote, the power of the truth and also the power of our voices.
“Australia is a democracy where voting is mandatory. So, in this day and age, ignorance as to what is being done under your name is not a defence. Every vote which the people but in for this Liberal government is a vote for cruelty, or for any part that condones using concentration camps and holding people in arbitrary detention. It is a crime which is being committed under the name of Australians, the good-hearted Australians. These people need to take initiative and find out the truth. Make an effort to find out what is being done under their name, because this government is definitely not telling them the truth or the right information. This government is all about hiding their accountability, getting more fascist, and making more money. They don’t care about the welfare of the people of Australia!” Says Nauroze.
Follow Nauroze and his time in arbitrary detention on his Twitter @ForLovenFreedom, and on his blog https://t.co/uynQcVVgXa?amp=1
Listen to more of our chat here