Australian media are not allowed inside immigration detention centres, but earlier this year journalist Giovanni Torre spoke to asylum seekers at the Leonora Alternative Place of Detention in Western Australia. Torres also asked locals their thoughts about the centre.
Zed and Nar, Hazara asylum seekers waiting to hear back about their refugee application:
“Pashtun always say; Tajik go to Tajikistan, Uzbek go to Uzbekistan, Pashtun live in Afghanistan and Hazara go to graveyard,” says Zed, a young Hazara man detained in the Leonora detention centre.
He was on Christmas Island for three months, before been flown to the Australian outback town. Leonora is 230km north of Kalgoorlie, in Western Australia's eastern goldfields.
“My case officer tell me Afghanistan safe, Afghanistan not safe for me. I talk to him about my situation, he says 'I don't know',” Zed says.
“When we call our (home) area the people told us, Taliban come here and kill 20 people – in front of their children.”
He dreams of returning to his homeland one day, but says the situation there is horrific at the moment.
“We are thinking one day Afghanistan have peace and we will go back to our country … But now - no freedom of religion, no education. If you go in my area, if you are Christian, the people thinking if they kill you - they will go to paradise!”
Like Zed, his wife Nar has been in the Leonora detention centre for seven months, after three on Christmas Island.
“(My) first husband was killed by the Taliban. Brother-in-law was killed by the Taliban. One year ago, my brother was killed by the Taliban,” she says.
Nar has seven children in Pakistan living with relatives. Her hope was to reach Australia with her second husband, receive asylum and then have her children brought safely to their new home.
She was on the first boat affected by the Gillard Government's six month suspension of Afghan claims to asylum.
“Afghanistan very dangerous for Hazara … Ladies in very bad condition in Afghanistan. Taliban come into the home, kill husband and brother … Taliban”.
She paused with an expression of pain on her face, “Taliban...rape ladies. Young, big, all.”
Jim Epis , CEO of Leonora Shire:
Mr Epis says Leonora has a long history of welcoming people from diverse and often strife-ridden backgrounds.
“In the 1950s, Gwalia and Leonora [twin towns] offered a haven to those European men and women who were picking-up the pieces of their war-shattered lives," he told SBS.
"The majority of people living in Leonora today probably consider the arrivals of the refugees as no different to the arrival of the Europeans in the 1950s.”
He describes the detention centre as a “boon” economically.
“Payment for recreational facilities and other services all help the local economy. There are 60-70 support staff who now live here, spending money in hotels, restaurants, retail outlets and tourism attractions.”
Local Indigenous leader, Richard Evans:
Mr Evans, leader of the Koara people, was born in Leonora 57 years ago.
He says, like the Hazara in Afghanistan, the Koara people were once made to feel like an unwanted intruder in their own land, but times have changed and so has the town.
“More than 200 years ago the First Fleet came into Australia and took over. Now they are telling these people here, boat people, 'nick off, get going you boat people',” he says.
Mr Evans isn't opposed to some form of mandatory detention, arguing that security checks are needed for asylum seekers, but, he adds, “not like this” and points towards the detention centre – which is almost literally in his backyard.
“They can't even go for a walk. It's degrading to a human being.”
* These interviews were conducted in January. SBS is unaware of the outcome of Zed and Nar's refugee application.
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