The lawyer for an illiterate and sick Iraqi man deported from Australia overnight says he may not survive more than a couple of years.
A last-ditch effort to keep the 58-year-old man, known as Saeed, in Australia failed on Sunday night.
Saeed, a member of a persecuted minority, fled Iraq with his brother and arrived in Australia 2012. The brother was granted asylum but Saeed was not, prompting a series of protests.
Saeed’s lawyer, Alison Battisson from Human Rights for All, was given no notice before his deportation on Sunday night. Battisson said Saeed is weak, weighing less than 50kg, has no money and is illiterate. He is not from a major city and will have little support upon arrival in Iraq.
Battisson said his prospects were bleak.
“[They are] very, very low. He’s not sophisticated, he’s from a minority group, he’s poor. He’s always been very poor,” she told Guardian Australia.
“If he’s alive in a couple of years, I’d be very surprised.”
Saeed had been in detention for four years. A number of arrests were made when activists disrupted an attempt to deport him from Melbourne in March.
Saeed was instead taken to Villawood in Sydney, and went on hunger strike. He has been on hunger strike periodically since the move.
“It’s his health which is the main concern, and the treatment that he needs, I just can’t imagine will be easily accessible in Iraq,” Battisson said. “He’s not from the capital, he’s not from a major city.”
Battison said she had been preparing one final appeal, directly to the immigration minister, Peter Dutton, to grant Saeed a visa on compassionate grounds. The late-night deportation rendered that appeal useless, she said.
She said immigration authorities appeared to have arranged Saeed’s deportation to avoid similar scenes to those in March.
A protester, upon learning of the deportation on Sunday, bought a plane ticket so he could get through immigration and hand leaflets to other passengers on Saeed’s flight, she said.
The protester was not able to buy a ticket on Saeed’s flight, she said, but encouraged other passengers to delay the trip.
Saeed’s application for asylum was rejected on administrative grounds, according to Battisson, who blamed poor legal representation.
She said a recent administrative appeals tribunal judgment had found another man, from the same minority and region as Saeed, had been granted asylum over fears of persecution.
“The process has failed him,” she said.
