Olympic hopes dashed by asylum seeker’s visa limbo
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.
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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.