Grounded Kiwis, a group of thousands of New Zealanders stranded outside their own country, has slammed the NZ government over its treatment of a pregnant journalist who was denied entry to her home country to give birth to her child.
In a column published in The New Zealand Herald on Saturday, Charlotte Bellis, 35, said she was stranded in Afghanistan and has turned to the Taliban for help after New Zealand prevented her from returning due to a bottleneck of people in its COVID-19 quarantine system.
“It’s horrendous. And the thing about this particular story I find most upsetting is that Charlotte has a profile, she is a highly-regarded journalist and so she has this ability for her voice to get noticed,” Grounded Kiwis spokesperson Martin Newell told SBS News.
“But there are many others that don’t have the profile that Charlotte does and they don’t get heard. And it shouldn’t take an internationally-known journalist to get noticed and to [highlight] the inhumanity of New Zealand’s border system,” Mr Newell said.
New Zealand has managed to keep the spread of COVID-19 to a minimum during the pandemic, reporting just 52 virus deaths among its population of five million. In comparison, Australia's death toll is approaching 4,000.
But the nation’s requirement that even returning citizens spend 10 days isolating in quarantine hotels run by the military has led to a backlog of thousands of people vying for spots to return home.
Ms Bellis was working for Al Jazeera last year, covering the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan, when she gained international attention by questioning Taliban leaders about their treatment of women and girls.
In her column on Saturday, Ms Bellis said she returned to Qatar in September and discovered she was pregnant with her partner, freelance photographer Jim Huylebroek, a contributor to The New York Times.
She is due to give birth to a girl in May.
Extramarital sex is illegal in Qatar and Ms Bellis said she realised she needed to leave. She repeatedly tried to get back to New Zealand in a lottery-style system for returning citizens, but without success.
Charlotte Bellis with Taliban officials in September 2021. Source: Supplied: Twitter.com/charlottebellis
She said she resigned from Al Jazeera in November and the couple moved to Huylebroek’s native Belgium. But she couldn’t stay long, she said, because she wasn’t a resident. She said the only other place the couple had visas to live was Afghanistan.
Ms Bellis said she spoke with senior Taliban contacts, who told her she would be fine if she returned to Afghanistan.
“Just tell people you're married and if it escalates, call us. Don't worry,” Ms Bellis said they told her.
She said she sent 59 documents to New Zealand authorities in Afghanistan but they rejected her application for an emergency return.
Chris Bunny, the joint head of New Zealand's Managed Isolation and Quarantine (MIQ) system, told the Herald that Bellis' emergency application didn't fit a requirement that she travel within 14 days.
Mr Bunny told Newshub "applications may be considered outside of the 14-day window. However, proceeding outside the 14-day timeframe is the exception, not the rule".
He said staff had reached out to Ms Bellis about making another application that would fit within the requirements.
“This is not uncommon and is an example of the team being helpful to New Zealanders who are in distressing situations,” Mr Bunny wrote.
Ms Bellis said that pregnancy can be a death sentence in Afghanistan because of the poor state of maternity care and lack of surgical capabilities.
She said that after talking to lawyers, politicians and public relations people in New Zealand, her case seems to be moving forward again, although she has yet to be approved for passage home.
According to Mr Newell, it’s impossible to get into the country at the moment.
“New Zealand isn’t prohibiting citizens to re-enter. There is the MIQ system, but it’s nigh on impossible to get into the country because of limited capacity,” Mr Newell said.
Charlotte Bellis at the Taliban's first press conference in Afghanistan in August 2021. Source: Supplied: Instagram.com/charlottebellis/
The government two weeks ago stopped all booking on the quarantine system because they wanted time to manage the Omicron outbreak,” Mr Newell said.
Mr Newell said Ms Bellis' case is not unique.
In 2021, another pregnant New Zealand woman, Bergen Graham, was stranded in the United States after being declined a quarantine hotel spot six times.
While Mr Newell said while Ms Graham was eventually granted permission to arrive in New Zealand and gave birth to her child in her home country, thousands of Kiwis - desperate to get back to New Zealand and reunite with their families - remain stranded overseas.
Grounded Kiwis, a Facebook group of more than 15,000 New Zealanders stranded overseas, has brought a lawsuit against Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's government, alleging the country’s quarantine system is breaching its Bill of Rights.
The group has raised $176,000 NZD ($166,000 AUD) through crowdfunding to bankroll the case and has employed the services of leading New Zealand barrister Paul Radich QC.
The case is set to be heard in the Wellington High Court on 14 February.
Additional reporting by AAP.
