The other side of the fence

The question is not whether we detain asylum seekers, but on what terms, writes Connie Levett. Morteza Poorvadi numbed his lip with an ice cube, then punched the needle through, cross stitching his mouth, back and forth, six times. The right side of his mouth was drawn tight; the left not so much, leaving space to slip in a cigarette. Stitching his lips together, at Villawood detention centre in 2002, was one choice the teenage Iranian asylum seeker felt he could make in a world where he felt his voice and all other choices had been removed. "We wanted to draw attention, and stitching our lips together would draw attention in the outside world. It's not something you do if everything is good," he said this week. "It didn't do anything for us but it did change the system. If we did not do these things we would not be where we... [read full story]