March 16, 2018
In Australia, most Iranians who make news are refugees demanding to be allowed in while the Australia government blocks the door. But then there’s Saeed Dezfouli. He’s demanding to go back to Iran—but the Australian government won’t let him leave.
Dezfouli is a four-decade resident of Australia, with almost half that time spent in an insane asylum. And while the Islamic Republic doesn’t want to take any of those refugees back, it is sending Australia letters insisting that it send Dezfouli back home.
He arrived in Australia in 1979 at the time of the revolution, when Iranians were still welcome, as an asylum seeker. He got Australian citizenship before he was locked up 16 years ago.
Now 59 years old, Dezfouli, has been detained at The Forensic Hospital in a New South Wales prison since 2003.
The Australian Government won’t let him leave unless Iran can guarantee his repatriation would include supervised psychiatric care.
“I don’t have a future in Australia,” Dezfouli told SBS News in Australia. “I am desperate and I want to go back to Iran to be with my family and that is the only way.”
Iran has called on Australia to allow Dezfouli to return to his homeland. A letter from the Iranian embassy says his repatriation will put an end “to 16 years of bitter experiences in care and custody in your mental health system.”
In 2002, Dezfouli set fire to the foyer of the Ethnic Affairs Commission building in Sydney, where he worked as a court interpreter, after becoming convinced then-Prime Minister John Howard was trying to kill him. A woman died due to smoke inhalation.
Dezfouli was later found not guilty of murder by reason of mental illness and detained in psychiatric care as he was deemed a threat to the community.
He renounced his Australian citizenship last year in a bid to be repatriated to Iran, which he said was his only way to leave the hospital. “I’m stuck indefinitely in this system here,” he said.
He has been diagnosed with chronic paranoid schizophrenia. In correspondence seen by SBS News, Dezfouli was flagged by the Australian Federal Police in 2006 after sending threatening letters to high-profile politicians while in care.
Last October, the Iranian embassy wrote to Premier Gladys Berejiklian of the state of New South Wales calling on her to intervene in Dezfouli’s case and allow his immediate release and repatriation as he had “suffered enough” in the care of the state’s health system.
“We hereby would like to request for your honor’s kind consideration, intervention and assistance over this very serious sensitive, important and concerning issue involving both the New South Wales and Iranian governments and systems and to assist Mr. Dezfouli to have a ‘Fair Go’ in Iran,” the letter from the Iranian embassy reads.
Mental Health Minister Tanya Davies told the consulate in response that any decision regarding Dezfouli “is strictly a matter for the [state Mental Health Review] Tribunal to decide.”
“In considering arrangements for Mr. Dezfouli to return to Iran, the Tribunal has a legal responsibility to consider the likely effect of its orders, including whether [his] mental health needs will be met,” she wrote. “This requirement exists even though Mr. Dezfouli has renounced his Australian citizenship.”
As required by law, every six months Dezfouli’s case is reviewed by the New South Wales Mental Health Review Tribunal and his release or continued forced psychiatric care is decided.
The tribunal has said to release Dezfouli would be a risk to the public without supervised psychiatric care and has requested that the Iranian government agree to detain him for treatment in Iran. Without a guarantee, the tribunal has declined to release him.
But the Iranian government has declined to make such a promise. In a letter to the tribunal last December, the Iranian embassy in Canberra said the tribunal should not “instruct the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran how to handle its citizens.”
“Just like any other citizen in Iran, under Sharia laws Mr. Dezfouli has civil, legal and human rights and is entitled to be free and prosper in Iran as long as he does not break any law in Iran or commit an unlawful act,” the letter reads.
“ We would like to request you to not instruct the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran how to treat and handle its citizen and not to meddle with the internal affairs of Iran and to refrain from interfering with our citizen’s rights, liberty and freedom in Iran too.”