Fighting for the Human Rights of Refugees on Manus Island

The Sudanese human rights activist Abdul Aziz Muhamat has fled Darfur in 2013 to seek asylum in a safe country. He flew to Indonesia and traveled onward by boat for Australia. His boat was intercepted by Australian authorities, who forcibly transferred him into the country’s offshore immigration system at the Lombrum naval base, on Manus Island.

He was granted refugee status in early 2015, but remains on Manus Island, along with several hundred other men who were transferred there after arriving in Australian territory by boat and seeking asylum. He is one of the primary public voices among the men held on Manus Island and regularly speaks out on international news media.

For two years, he sent over 4000 voice messages to report on his experiences for the multi-award-winning podcast The Messenger. On 13 February 2019, he received the Martin Ennals Award – the leading award in human rights – for his struggle for refugee rights. Due to a special visa, he was able to leave the detention center on the Island and attend the award ceremony in Geneva, Switzerland, for two weeks.

We invite you cordially to this public event with Abdul Aziz Muhamat in conversation with Prof. Dr. Bilgin Ayata (University of Basel, Sociology) as part of the lecture series of the master program Changing Societies of the Department of Social Sciences in cooperation with the Graduate School of Social Sciences.