IMRAN MOHAMMAD /// On Genocide, Detention, and Refugeehood

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This podcast episode is a bit different from the ones we usually publish — and not just because of our new opening credits edited by Andrei Popoviciu! Taking advantage of his visit in Chicago, Léopold talked with our past contributor Imran Mohammad. In November 2017, he wrote a text for us about the Rohingya genocide that he fled while he was living his fourth year of detention in an Australian camp detaining hundreds of exiled people on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea. A few weeks later and while many detainees organized forms of revolt, the camp ceased to operate and 600 people including Imran were left in it without any sort of support, safety, nor supply (see blog article below). Since then, Imran succeeded in obtaining the refugee status in the United States and currently lives in Chicago where he found a supportive community.

This episode is unusual as we don’t usually follow the journalistic trope of placing a microphone in front of someone and asking them to tell us “their story.” In the case of Imran however, he decided during his years in detention that telling the multiple occurrences of systematic violence he has experienced in the past decade consisted a means to resist such a violence and express solidarity with those who remain under such duress. We are relieved that this second collaboration with him was possible in a context of serenity and relative safety.

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