#Performances
#About the event
Duration: 60 minutes
Here, for the first time, a Rohingya man speaks up to expose the truth behind this global humanitarian crisis. Through the eyes of a child, we learn about the historic persecution of the Rohingya people and witness the violence Habiburahman endured throughout his life until he escaped the country in 2000.
#Artist
Habiburahman
My full name is Habiburahman (but widely known as Habib) and I am a Rohingya. Born in 1979 in Burma (now Myanmar).
I escaped torture, persecution and detention in my own country.
I came through South East Asia where I endured more detention, tortures and slavery. The Hardship and the human rights violation I faced has in deed inspired me to be a Spokesperson for my people. Yet I had to flee once more to save my life, I took the sea route in Dec 2009. After being rescued in the middle of the sea by Australian authorities, I spent 32 months in detention centres. I now lives in Melbourne and continues to serve as spokesperson to advocate for the Rohingya's human rights through the organization I founded ( Australian Burmese Rohingya Organization- ABRO) to advocate for my community. I am also part time working as a translator, social worker and also the support service co-ordinator at Refugees, Survivors and Ex-Detainees (RISE) and secretary of the international Rohingya organisation- Arakan Rohingya National Organisation (ARNO), based in the UK.
#Moderator
Mark Isaacs
Mark is a writer, an author, a researcher and a community worker. His first book, The Undesirables: Inside Nauru (Hardie Grant, 2014), is an account of his work with asylum seekers in Nauru, one of Australia’s notorious offshore detention centres. His second book, Nauru Burning (Editia, 2016), follows up The Undesirables with an investigative report on human rights abuses on Nauru. In 2017, Mark conducted an investigation into deportations to Afghanistan with the Edmund Rice Centre. The published report, titled 'Responsibility to Protect', paved the way for Mark's later writings in Afghanistan.
Mark’s third book, The Kabul Peace House (Hardie Grant, 2019) is about a community of peace activists in Afghanistan. Mark is president of Sydney PEN, an affiliate of PEN International, a worldwide association of writers which defends freedom of expression and campaigns on behalf of writers who have been silenced by persecution or imprisonment. He continues to write freelance while studying a Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Technology, Sydney. His research will focus on human migration in the Asia-Pacific region.
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