Michael Bachelard Indonesia correspondent for Fairfax Media
July 3, 2013
Convert: Reza Mohobalipour. Photo: Michael Bachelard
In the tough new opinion of the Australian government, the thousands of Iranian asylum seekers now arriving by boat are ''mostly'' economic migrants, and more of them need to have their refugee applications rejected.
But among one large group of Iranians in Indonesia - who narrowly survived yet another boat sinking off the coast of Java this week - the stories are as varied as the individuals telling them.
Mohammad Torabi is a Shiite Muslim - a part of Iran's majority religious group, which Foreign Minister Bob Carr says, by definition, rules him out of refugee status.
But he says he is also a musician whose love of rock music, including banned instruments the guitar and piano, have seen him jailed repeatedly for subversion and branded an Israeli and American spy.
Abbas Shepur Aziz has now fled his country twice in a lifetime. Like about half of this group he is a Faili Kurd and, when he was nine years old, his family was forced to flee Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Now, 33 years later, he wants to escape his status as a second-class citizen in Iran, where he says his child cannot go to university and he is prevented from registering a car or obtaining official papers of any kind.
Another man says he is a bankrupt; another, Reza Mohobalipour, is a Christian convert in a country where ''apostasy'' means misery, and sometimes the death sentence.
Bizhan Jahangir acts as the interpreter for this group of about 60 men, women and children, who are now in temporary immigration detention in an Indonesian hotel.
Mr Jahangir is one of the Shiite majority middle-class - another group on Senator Carr's hit list. But this former food shop owner says he made a big mistake when he argued with his local clergyman.
''He was talking about the election and … because he defended the government, I had an argument with him,'' Mr Jahangir says. ''After this they put pressure on my business. They came to my store every day and they checked the prices. I had to close the store. I had a problem with the priest, so I ran away.''
Mr Jahangir admits that financial problems in Iran's struggling, sanctions-beset economy are ''the first'' reason why many of these people have fled. But then he tries to articulate the mix of political and economic motives that have driven 4271 to take the dangerous boat journey so far this year.
''Because they have many problems in Iran, especially economic, they want to be against the government, and then the government would arrest them,'' he says.
''Some people in Iran have satellite TV. They can see the other world - your country, Australia. If you are a citizen you can talk about your government, legally, and demonstrate and strike.
''If in Iran you talk about member of the family of a politician, you will be dead. If you talk about the economy, they'll say you are an American spy, Israeli spy.
''The leader [of Iran] is a dictator, they force people to behave like them … girls should wear the scarf, and music is forbidden.''
Is this enough, though, for these people to be granted refugee status under the ''political opinion'' in the refugee convention? That's up to Australia's courts and tribunals, whose discretion regarding these refugees Senator Carr wants to reduce by way of new ''hard-edged'' country assessments.
But the Immigration Department's June 2013 Country Guidance Note for Iran already sets a high bar for politically based asylum claims.
''The harm feared must involve serious harm, be systematic and discriminatory in nature and … the applicant's political opinion is the essential and significant reason for the persecution.''
These Iranians are aware of the change of government in Australia, and that it might be bad news for them. They already know that, when making their claims, they must emphasise politics not economics.
After their experiences on boats, though, some are ''really scared'' of trying the journey again and will try to return to Iran. Others have decided to wait in Indonesia and apply through official channels for refugee status.
Still others are determined to catch another boat and take their chances, again, on the ocean.
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