‘I'm just pretending … as if I'm preparing for a space journey, and the space journey, it takes many years.’

Aziz

After months of interviews, Aziz finally sits facing an immigration officer and an interpreter, about to find out whether he’s been granted refugee status. But he’s too angry to talk about that. What he'd rather know is why he’s just spent weeks locked in a jail cell in Lorengau, before being abruptly released without charge.

In this episode, Aziz tells Michael about the hunger strike that lead to his imprisonment, and why he continues to pursue big and small acts of resistance – despite the consequences.

Transcript

Download a transcript of this episode in Adobe PDF format.

In this episode

• Abdul Aziz Muhamat
• Michael Green

Our theme music was composed by Raya Slavin. Music used in this episode includes ‘02-15-02’ by Taylor Deupree and Kenneth Kirschner, ‘Ambient Head’ by Atom Heart and Tetsu Inoue, ‘Variation for Oud and Synthesizer 2’ and ‘Rhodes Viola Multiple’ by Keith Fullerton Whitman, ‘Helix’ by Radian, ‘There Are Other Worlds (They Have Not Told You Of)’ by Jan Jelinek Avec The Exposures, ‘Plastic Energy Man’ by Papa M, ‘People are Friends’ by Biosphere, ‘Biokinetics 2’ by Porter Ricks, ‘Pilot’ by Markus Guentner, ‘Twenty’ by Labradford, ‘Miracle to Fill My Life’ by Abe Duque, ‘Changeling’ by DJ Shadow, ‘Summa Afrique (Oren Ambarchi remix)’ by Tape, and ‘We Let the “S” Hang in the Air’ by Brokeback.

More information

The Messenger is a co-production of Behind the Wire and the Wheeler Centre. It’s produced by Michael Green, André Dao, Hannah Reich and Bec Fary, with Jon Tjhia and Sophie Black at the Wheeler Centre.

Narration by Michael Green. With reporting by Abdul Aziz Muhamat. Additional fact checking by the Guardian's Ben Doherty; transcription by Claire McGregor, Tiarne Cook, Eugenia Zoubtchenko and many more​. This episode was edited and mixed by Bec Fary and Jon Tjhia.

Thank you

Dana Affleck, Angelica Neville and Sienna Merope. Also to Hani Abdile, and to Behind the Wire’s many participants and volunteers. Behind the Wire is supported by the Bertha Foundation.

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