Iranian refugee Yousef Mazraeh speaks out for World Refugee Day

Iranian refugee Yousef Mazraeh has escaped being beaten, starved, tortured and spied on.

It's been a long journey that included eight years in prison where guards threatened to hang him every night. But he has lived in "heaven" since he moved to New Zealand in 2012.

Now the 50-year-old works with the Red Cross, is a teacher aide, studies tourism and runs free Arabic classes every week, as well as caring for his four children and wife.

"I was thinking [New Zealand] was like a heaven.

"I was expecting to meet kind people but I didn't know it would be this level of kindness. I feel we belong to this society now."

Mazraeh is sharing his story for World Refugee Day today. He is one of the people highlighted on the "Get to know me" posters plastered around Auckland by the Red Cross. They call for Kiwis to challenge their perceptions on refugees.

Mazraeh has earned his slice of the good life. He was thrown into prison when he was 21 for protesting on human rights issues in his hometown Ahvaz. His family were part of an Arab minority.

There he spent three years in solitary confinement where he was tortured and beaten. He suffered nightmares every time he slept for years.

"They came to knock on the door just to torture me, they'd say 'we want to hang you'.

"They told me 'your family don't want to be in touch any more with you, they don't like you'.

"I didn't believe them but after three years I thought maybe it was true."

He was reunited with his family when he was transferred to a general prison for a further five years. There he became emaciated and sick, struggling to breathe.

His family campaigned to get him to the hospital. Eventually his father sold his house and bribed the court system to release Mazraeh.

It took a further 15 years of lying low before he was taken off the Government's "black list" and given a passport.

"I got a visa to Indonesia. I said I'm just going for a holiday with my family . . . When I reached Indonesia I immediately went to ask for a refugee certificate."

Mazraeh had a brother who had come to New Zealand in 2009 so was able to resettle under a family reunification visa. He was one of the lucky ones, less than 1 per cent of the world's 21.3 million refugees are resettled each year.

Immigrating was a challenge, but less than five years on Mazraeh is fluent in English and his four children, aged 3 to 18, speak without an accent and love Kiwi life.

Mazraeh believes all people are refugees - because, he says, if you look through your lineage long enough you will find an ancestor with the same experience.

"All of us, we have this experience. Our needs are a little different, but we are the same as other people.

"So please get close to us, don't think that our painful background just makes us trauma or strangers."

He urged Kiwis to reach out to refugees.

"If we are not integrating nicely with the community it's because we are a little bit shy to take the first step. It is helpful if you take the first step toward us to feel safe and secure. We are not dangerous."

The Red Cross has compiled 29 recipes from refugees into a cookbook, Taste of Cultures, which they are selling to fundraise.