We need to help #FreeMojgan.
“Loving and caring for my beautiful wife is not a crime but it’s made feel like that, because she is an asylum seeker,” Milad Jafari says.
Mr Jafari is a permanent Australia resident whose wife Mojgan Shamsalipoor was forcibly transferred from a detention centre in Brisbane to one in Darwin earlier this month.
Now Mr Jafari, himself an Iranian refugee, is circulating a petition to try and free his wife from immigration detention.
The newlyweds, who are both 21 years old, had been living free in the community for two years before Ms Shamsalipoor was detained on 8 August — just months out from completing her Year 12 at a Brisbane high school.
Watch Milad speak at a recent #FreeMojgan rally in Brisbane (post continues after video):
Mojgan is seeking asylum because of sexual abuse and torture in Iran, according to Mr Jafari.
“I am already missing her – my heart is breaking,” he writes.
“I love her truly and she is everything to me. I thought after we got married that I would get every chance to see her smile and make her happy. We both are young and should feel like we have a bright future ahead of us. We just want to have a chance to live happily together.”
Mojgan’s transfer to Darwin has generated protests in Brisbane, while Mr Jafari has been generating support for his wife on social media under the hashtag #FreeMojgan.
In recent months, an undisclosed number of Iranians living in Australian on bridging visas have been taken from their communities and placed in detention.
That move follows speculation that the Department of Immigration is in negotiations with the Iranian government to return citizens whose applications for asylum have been rejected.
Please sign Mr Jafari’s petition here.
Top Comments
i met these two young people over 2 years ago in my capacity as an English teacher at a school in Brisbane. The way they and many others have been treated by our government is deplorable. We are talking about humans, ones that I know, respect and care for deeply, they are not "others". There love has grown as they have grown into two outstanding young people. People I am proud to know. They have done nothing wrong accept ask for help. I know I would do anything to protect my children and my family no matter what it took. Those that speculate about the honesty of these wonderful young people I can only repeat something I heard last week "people escape by sea only when the land is no longer safe".
Hmm, I would also do anything to protect my children also, but is dragging them through Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia and Indonesia, then further risking their lives by putting them on a crappy boat to Australia really protecting them?, when there are so many other options that don't require such risks.
I don't think you fully understand the extent of the situation. Iranians have a hard enough time leaving their country for basic travel purposes let alone flee persecution. Also Iranians cannot enter most countries on an Iranian Passport. Woman generally cannot travel without the permission of their husband, father or an older male relative. And what happens if your abuser is that husband or that older male relative? Do you really think you they will let you escape? So when you're a woman who is fleeing for your life and your options are extremely limited there's no other choice than to get on a dingy boat. You really shouldn't be so judgemental when you literally have no idea what's going on.
Righto..... a dingy you say....for a 10,573 kilometer trip, a 48 day trip traveling 24hrs a day @ 5 knots, assuming good weather. Unless you have a magical dingy that can hold/ carry at least 1500 litres of fuel and 94 litres of freash water person then your going to have to stop and re supply multiple times costing more time, and thats if the ports will let you. Even with the shelter of a small boat you would need a lot of luck to survive!. You really should apply some critical thinking to your logic. Iran to Greece about 3700 kilometers, to France about 5500 kilometers, pretty much all by road. How do you not know record numbers of asylum seekers are using this route, you must literally have your eyes and ears closed to not know what's going on.
So you would send a young woman back into a situation of sexual abuse and danger? Shame on you and all like you. She was working hard to move beyond her traumatic past to become a contributing member of our community. She was 3 months off finishing high school. They took her (along with other young people and kids) away with no explanation, apart from destroying morale. When did the Australian government- and so many people like you- become so repugnant that abusing human rights is justified. You go back to Iran.