TRANSCRIPT
A prisoner - now released - appealing on behalf of another.
Three years ago, Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert was imprisoned for 804 days in Iran, after being falsely accused of being a spy.
The experience has led her to advocate for others wrongfully or arbitrarily detained.
"It really deeply, profoundly upsets me to think that these are Australian citizens and we have abandoned them there. Children who have done absolutely nothing wrong. I think the government has a moral duty to help Yusuf and to help the other particularly underage children held in camps in Syria. These children - and Yusuf who was thrown into an adult prison as a 15-year-old child - are not culpable for their alleged crimes of their parents or older siblings. They are innocent children. They are Australian citizens and they deserve our help and our protection. And I believe they should be brought back to Australia."
Yusuf Zahab was 12 when he travelled with his family on holiday and ended up in Syria.
After the fall of the self-declared I-S caliphate, he was swept into the Kurdish adult prison system.
His family thought he had died, but SBS's Dateline program travelled to Syria and managed to locate him.
"Tell my family back in Australia that I love them all. And please don't forget me here. I'm scared I'm going to die here. So many died in prison. Please I just want to go back home."
His cause is now also being taken up by crossbenchers in Parliament.
Greens Senator David Shoebridge says there are questions for the government to answer.
"What's the government's proposal for these Australian citizens - who came to this terrible situation of no choice of their own. Effectively trafficked into this appalling situation and are now finding themselves, some of them in indefinite detention? The Australian government just can't keep running from this problem."
The Home Affairs Minister has refused to comment on the case, but questions were directed to department officials during Senate Estimates last week.
Home Affairs Department official Nathan Smyth responded to questions from senator Shoebridge, saying it has been challenging for Australian officials to operate from Syria.
David Shoebridge: This is an Australian citizen who was taken overseas as a child, has been held in detention since he was a child, surely home affairs is doing what it can to bring him back?
Nathan Smyth: Senator I referred you to the fact that he is in detention in Syria. And we do not have staff or DFAT support on the ground in Syria And we have no effective, therefore, diplomatic relationship with the government of Syria.
The only contact Yusuf Zahab says he has had with Australian authorities was with the domestic spy agency more than four years ago.
In an interview with SBS last month, ASIO director-general Mike Burgess said it is a relief to hear Yusuf is alive.
Mike Burgess: I was relieved to hear he is actually alive. Obviously, not everyone stuck in Syria is a threat to security. It's an unfortunate situation. Some are though, and we have to be vigilant about that.
Anna Henderson: He was 12 years old, he thought he was going on holidays. Your assessment now….
Mike Burgess: It's good question. I'm not commenting on this individual. I don't comment on individual cases. That was a more generic statement. For him he's obviously trapped in a terrible place and that's horrible.
Anna Henderson: How will in this kind of case such a decision be communicated?
Mike Burgess: If they are deemed a threat security, there are things including temporary exclusion orders that can be invoked. That's not ASIO seeing that's managed elsewhere. We focus on is an individual threat security, but if they're an Australian citizen, they have a right to come home.
There appears to be no prospect of that for now.
And you can find out more about Yusuf Zahab's story on Dateline, available at SBS On Demand.
And his interview with Former UN Special Rapporteur Fionnuala Ní Aoláin on the Syrian prisons holding Australians is .
