Iranian Ex-patriate Poet Turns Seamster in Protest

[Timber Loftis]

Today's NYTIMES:

For Asylum Seeker, Self-Torment Becomes Means of Protest
By SARAH LYALL

LONDON, May 28 — The torture was as commonplace as it was brutal, Adas Amini told the British authorities when he arrived here from Iran seeking asylum two years ago. Among other things, he said, the soles of his feet were beaten; he was strung up so that his body was horribly contorted, and he was forced to play victim in prolonged mock executions.

But Mr. Amini, a dissident Iranian poet of 33 who says he spent six years in prison back home, has been unable to persuade the British government — which is under relentless political pressure to reduce the number of asylum applicants — that he is telling the truth.

Traumatized and desperate, Mr. Amini has turned to desperate measures to protest the Home Office's recent decision to continue challenging his asylum application, which has already gone through numerous bureaucratic tangles. He has not eaten for nine days. Last week, he took a needle and crudely stitched his eyes, mouth and ears up with green thread, vowing not to remove the stitches or eat until his application was granted.

"I would rather die like this gradually a thousand times than face the injustices, the oppression, the lack of any human rights or any humanity which I was facing in Iran," he told the BBC, speaking in whispered Farsi through an interpreter, his lips straining against their stitches.

He added: "I spent many years in prison being tortured. I was forced to flee here. Shouldn't a human being have a square foot of earth to live on to live in peace?"

Mr. Amini's case puts a stark human face on a problem that most Britons are accustomed to considering in the abstract. In the years from 2000 to 2002, about 300,000 people applied for asylum in Britain, more than in any other industrialized country, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Most of the new arrivals tend to settle in England's already-crowded southeast, provoking opposition from local groups who say they are siphoning benefits and taking housing from native Britons.

Under heavy political pressure, and pressed further by the opposition Conservative Party and right-leaning newspapers like The Daily Mail and The Sun, the government has in recent years enacted a series of laws that make it harder for would-be asylum seekers to enter the country, to live here once they arrive, and to win asylum once they apply.

One provision of the law, for instance, had the practical effect of denying even minimal food and housing allowances to asylum seekers who failed to register their applications as soon as they arrived — regardless of where they came from or the condition they were in when they got here. But a recent court ruling held that the government was interpreting the law too harshly, and ordered it to overhaul its benefit procedures.

The case of Mr. Amini illustrates a common problem in an immigration system overwhelmed by applicants and drowning under a cascade of paperwork and bureaucracy. He appears, at least on the surface, to have a compelling case for asylum. Among other things, a doctor at the Medical Foundation for the Care and Victims of Torture, a London-based group that examines asylum applicants for proof of their claims, concluded that Mr. Amini had been "subjected to repeated torture" and had been left "very psychologically damaged."

Sam Azad, a regional coordinator of the International Federation of Iranian Refugees and the man who has emerged as Mr. Amini's spokesman in recent days, said that the Home Office's inaction — and its decision to discontinue his already-meager social security benefits for a time — had thrown his friend into despair.

Speaking from Nottingham, where Mr. Amini is carrying out his protest from a house he shares with other refugees, Mr. Azad said: "The action Abas is taking reflects the anger, anguish and demoralization of tens of thousands of refugees. In this city alone, there are hundreds of people whose benefits have been stopped — despite the fact that their court cases are still in progress".

Dr. Chris Udenze, who is treating Mr. Amini, said that he believed Mr. Amini had made the decision to stop eating while of sound mind. "We have to respect his rights to make a decision like this for himself," he said.

[johnny]

Well, i hope this doesn't come as a total surprise to you, this is something we know for more than a decade now. What's the use of starting a topic about just another torture incident in Iran ?

[Timber Loftis]

Originally posted by johnny: Well, i hope this doesn't come as a total surprise to you, this is something we know for more than a decade now. What's the use of starting a topic about just another torture incident in Iran ?

I just saw an interesting article in TODAY'S newspaper and thought it would interest others. Sorry, I'll check with you first in the future. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[Donut]

Originally posted by johnny: Well, i hope this doesn't come as a total surprise to you, this is something we know for more than a decade now. What's the use of starting a topic about just another torture incident in Iran ?

Perhaps you should read further than the first paragraph johnny. It isn't about torture in Iran it's about asylum seekers in the UK.

Anyway - he won his appeal but continues his protest for other asylum seekers.

BBC

[johnny]

Originally posted by Donut: quote: Originally posted by johnny: Well, i hope this doesn't come as a total surprise to you, this is something we know for more than a decade now. What's the use of starting a topic about just another torture incident in Iran ?

Perhaps you should read further than the first paragraph johnny. It isn't about torture in Iran it's about asylum seekers in the UK.

Anyway - he won his appeal but continues his protest for other asylum seekers.

BBC [/QUOTE]Yeah, i've read it, thank you very much. And he now lives in Britain where he told this story. Isn't that the story of every Iranian who now lives somewhere else ?

[Epona]

Originally posted by johnny: Yeah, i've read it, thank you very much. And he now lives in Britain where he told this story. Isn't that the story of every Iranian who now lives somewhere else ?

Probably because if he tried to tell his story while still in Iran he would be tortured and killed.