Nauru Narratives - Writing in Resistance

Dr Saba Vasefi is a multi-award-winning journalist scholar and poet. She teaches at the University of Sydney, Macquarie University and University of Canberra and writes for the Guardian on the narratives of displacement. Saba is the Red Room Poetry’s Writing in Resistance editor.

Dr Mehreen Faruqi is the Greens’ senator for New South Wales. She is a civil and environmental engineer and life-long activist for social and environmental justice. In 2013, she joined NSW State Parliament, becoming the first Muslim woman to sit in an Australian parliament. In 2018, Mehreen became the first Muslim woman in the Senate. She has been a passionate advocate against racism and misogyny.

Narges is a Hazara-Afghan refugee who arrived with her mother, Nasreen, and siblings in Australia in 2013 after travelling through Pakistan and Indonesia and was sent to the offshore processing centre in Nauru.

Mastaneh Azarnia is an Iranian artist from the Kurdish minority who faces systematic persecution. At the age of 25, she fled from Iran to Australia by boat alone and lived in offshore detention on Nauru for more than seven years.

Yasaman Bagheri is a 22-year-old writer and a political refugee. In 2013, she fled Iran due to religious and political persecution and sought asylum in Australia. From the age of 15 she was incarcerated in Australia’s offshore detention regime for a total of five years, moving between Christmas Island Detention Centre, Darwin Detention Centre, and the Australian-run offshore detention centre on Nauru.

Fazileh Mansour Beigi is a refugee and a member of Iran’s Kurdish ethnic minority, which faces systematic persecution in that country. She started writing while she was an incarcerated single mother of two sons Faribourz and Ali on Nauru to advocate for his children’s life. They came to Australia by boat in 2013.

Rev Ghanaei (they/their) is an 18-year-old trangender artist. Rev fled persecution from Iran and arrived on Nauru detention at the age of 12 and was incarcerated for more than 5 years. In 2018, the Federal Court of Australia ordered Rev should be transferred to Australia for critical mental health treatment. On Nauru, Rev started to portray the daily basis violence they were exposed to through drawings.

I am a survivor of the detention regime on Nauru and a human rights activist. I fled political, ethnic, and domestic violence persecution in Ethiopia in 2013. At the age of 21, I came alone to Australia by boat, subsequently, I was moved to Darwin detention and then to the Nauru Regional Processing Centre in the offshore Australian immigration detention facility.