Mojgan must stay – TRAPSA organises rally and events

TRAPSA (Teachers for Refugees and People Seeking Asylum) is staging an urgent rally outside Federal Immigration Minister Peter Dutton’s electorate office on Tuesday, 21 November at 4.30pm.

The aim is to highlight the plight of Mojgan Shamsalipoor, who desperately wants to remain in Australia with her Australian husband Milad. Mojgan, whose plight has featured twice on the ABC’s “Australian Story”, was violated by people who were supposed to protect her while she was a teenager in Iran and was to be forced into an arranged marriage to a man in his 60s. If Mojgan is forcibly returned to Iran, she is likely to be imprisoned, or worse, for speaking out in the Australian media.

Peter Dutton has the ministerial discretion to allow Mojgan to apply for permanent residency, however to date he refuses to do so. Instead he expects her to have made plans to depart Australia and return to Iran by 14 December this year.

Mojgan attended Yeronga State High School to undertake her high school education, and it was while she was a student there that she met and fell in love with Milad, another Iranian refugee. But then the immigration department forcibly removed her from Brisbane and sent her to a closed detention centre in Darwin, away from Milad, family and her support networks. Under these appalling conditions, Mojgan completed high school, with the support of Yeronga’s terrific teachers, and attended a belated graduation ceremony after she was finally released more than 12 months later. She is a remarkable young woman and is currently studying a Cert III in Child Care with the long term dream of gaining qualifications in nursing and midwifery.

Please come along to the rally and help us with the other numerous events – Facebook and letter writing campaigns and phone calls to the Minister’s office – which will be occurring in the coming weeks. See the TRAPSA and QTU Facebook pages for details.

Lin Esders                                                                                                                        Moreton Organiser

Queensland Teachers' Journal, Vol 122 No 8, 3 November 2017, p6