Olympic hopes dashed by asylum seeker’s visa limbo

Australian Community Media

One of Australia’s top wrestlers Mustafa Nikqadam can’t represent Australia in the Olympics because of a lifetime visa ban for asylum seekers who arrived in Australia by boat after 2013.

Transcript

00:00Despite being an Australian national champion, Mustafa Nekatam can never represent the country

00:12he calls home in the Olympics.

00:14I feel very sad, it's actually, it's very hard for me, I can't represent here, I don't

00:27know why.

00:29Wrestling helps me a lot when I was back in detention centre, so it gives me freedom,

00:35so now it's part of my life, so that's why I love wrestling now.

00:40Nekatam arrived in Australia by boat in 2013 after fleeing the Taliban group which killed

00:48his father.

00:50He spent one year in Christmas Island and seven years in the Nauru detention centre,

00:56where other Afghan asylum seekers trained him in wrestling.

01:00I started wrestling when I was in Iran, so, but I wasn't allowed to go to gym because

01:07I was a refugee there, refugees are not allowed to go to gym, and I started wrestling professionally

01:14in Nauru and here in Australia, Sydney.

01:18He is one of the asylum seekers impacted by a lifetime visa ban, which former Prime Minister

01:25Kevin Rudd announced in 2013.

01:29From now on, any asylum seeker who arrives in Australia by boat will have no chance of

01:34being settled in Australia as refugees.

01:38The 28-year-old qualified for the international refugee team in the London 2020 Olympics,

01:45but his dreams were destroyed when the pandemic shut the borders down.

01:49Now on a bridging visa that must be renewed every six months, he cannot travel overseas

01:55to compete.

01:56I'm not allowed to travel, I'm not allowed to study, yeah, and I can't do anything except

02:05work.

02:06So instead, he pours his energy into training children in a Western Sydney gym.

02:12I'm training harder every day so I could go one day to represent Australia.

02:18It looks like my dream has not come true.

02:21Because of this situation, you know, the visa is a problem.

02:24So now I'm just training the Australian kids so they could go and bring medals for here

02:29so I could watch them.

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