6/4/2003: Iranian sews himself shut

This is Abas Amini. He's a Kurdish political poet from Iran, where he was jailed for his views. Two years ago he fled to the UK, but recently the UK was refusing to grant him asylum. So a week ago he sewed up his eyes, mouth and ears in an attempt to get some publicity for his cause.

Two days later he was granted asylum, and the following day a nurse cut him open again.

I don't know whether his protest was what got him asylum. more info

He's did this for the "rights of asylum seekers"? Since when do asylum seekers have rights? Asulum seekers beg for help. If someone gives it to them, fine. If not then they must beg elsewhere. They have rights to nothing. The right to human dignity. Sure, he can beg in a dignified manner.

He missed a few. Might as well be thorough. Taste no evil, feel no evil, smell no evil.

supply more sewing kits and blunt needles

Give them all a sewing kit then all our problems will be tidied up. It's amazing how more and more Australians and citizens are finally coming to reality and have voiced that "enough is enough".

Your going to fit right in. Leah


wow how skilled one must be to sew one's eyes shut. but if some one helped him do it then there must be more than one person that has his view point.

The first thing he did after the stitches were removed was CHAIN SMOKE.
As an ex smoker i'm more impressed by the length of nicotine self deprivation than the minor irritation caused by a few stitches.
Seriously, after the described whipping, wouldn't the scars lend weight to his argument rather than self mutilation akin to the afore-posted whirling dervish.
Yeah, we need those in the country, come one come all, send us your poor, your needy, your flagellators, your zealots, your darners.
First impressions...

I don't know about him being committed to his beliefs, but I really would think he needs commitment.

Amazing the amount of leeway people are given when what they are doing is described as a "political statement" rather than just "plain crazy behavior." (I include flammable buddhist monks and that tax fast guy here).

Wondering ... UT, is there a icon ... little guy making a circle with his index finger near his temple? Would probably get a lot of usage. There are situations were doesn't quite provide the right tone.

[quote]Originally posted by wolf

Amazing the amount of leeway people are given when what they are doing is described as a "political statement" rather than just "plain crazy behavior."

Much like the difference between an act of political terrorism and plain old murder

Quote:

Originally posted by novice Much like the difference between an act of political terrorism and plain old murder

[quote]Originally posted by wolf
[b]

There isn't one. Am I missing your point?

Heck no, that is precisely my point !

Oooooh. Sarcasm. I get it! (your little angryface threw me off there ...)

Yeah. i see what you mean. Now i've re-read it it makes bugger all sense. Oh well, bear with me. I'll get up to Cellar speed eventually.
ps. can anybody tell me why, when I try to highlight for a "quote" it picks up the entire post.

He he, I just found this. The Aussie language gets biblical.

The Virgin Mary is a "pretty special sheila" who wraps her nipper in a bunny rug and tucks him up in a cattle feed trough, according to a new Australian version of the Bible.

"The stories are undoubtedly familiar, but their telling has taken an improbable verbal bruising with the translation of parts of the New Testament into the Australian vernacular, known as Strine."

Hard to concentrate when you've bruised your vernaculars

I think I remember reading about a guy who did this in Ripley's Believe it or Not back in the 60's. Somewhere between the story of the lighthouse keeper who drilled a hole in his head to put a candle and the one about the African tribe that shrunk a man's head while it was still attached.

I wonder if they do the ears too?

I'm wonder,was he not able to eat and do what everyone needs to for 2 days? At the site of the authorities I would not have accepted it so easily. It turns out that anyone can easily get into Britain, and Britain will eventually be a bunch of no good to anyone refugees.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bitman He missed a few. Might as well be thorough. Taste no evil, feel no evil, smell no evil.

Quote:

Originally Posted by zicla I'm wonder,was he not able to eat and do what everyone needs to for 2 days? At the site of the authorities I would not have accepted it so easily. It turns out that anyone can easily get into Britain, and Britain will eventually be a bunch of no good to anyone refugees.

No. Anyone can't get into Britain.

The whole point of the protest was that he'd been refused asylum and was about to be forcibly deported back to Iran to face likely imprisonment, torture and possible execution.

We supposedly offer asylum to anyone facing imprisonment and torture for their politics, beliefs, sexuality, or race. Yet we routinely (and I fucking mean routinely) bundle these vulnerable, frightened and traumatised families onto dawn flights back to the hell-holes they so desperately fled.

There are many documented cases of people who've been sent back to places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Congo, Somalia, Sierra Leone. People who've later disappeared in those countries. Some whose mutilated bodies were later found.

Those who do get to stay are forbidden from working and earning: instead they are housed in temporary and constantly changing accomodation, given food stamps, made to report to a police station once a week, subjected to regular and random searches of their homes and possessions. The medical professionals who assess them come to bizarre conclusions that are in stark contrast to what other doctors and counsellors have said about the patient.

I know several asylum seekers and refugees, some of whom have suffered unimaginable physical and mental torture. I know one woman who saw her child raped and killed, her husband hacked to death and was then herself gangraped multiple times across several days. Not only did the 'Doctor' (and I would suggest the only reason the man deserves that title is because of the plaque on his wall) conclude that she had not been tortured: but he then concluded, without having conducted any kind of internal physical examination, that she'd never been a mother and therefore her story must be untrue.

She was sent back to her country of origin.

I know another man who was brutally tortured under Saddam's regime. At one point he was sentenced to death, marched out with several others to where the firing squad was waiting. They each had to sign for the two bullets that would kill them. This was apparently a mock, staged execution. To frighten them. They were taken back to their cells.

He was tortured so badly that he lost his right leg. His scars are horrific. His assessment for the aslyum application stated that he had not been tortured.

Those awaiting a decision may well find themselves on a 'risk list' because of their country of origin. They will most likely be housed in a secure centre: a kind of prison camp, complete with armed guards, razor wire fences and half the dorms on suicide watch. One of them, 'Yarlswood' has been in and out of the news for its brutal regimes, the high suicide rates amongst its inmates, and the fact that there are still large numbers of young children incarcerated there. I had a good friend who spent some time in one of these places. A case of mistaken identity: another man with the a similar name had come to the end of his asylum process and was due to be deported. Imran was arrested in his place and kept in the centre for 2-3 weeks.

He lost masses of weight during that time. Was subjected to the humiliation of a full strip search every time he had a visitor. Was woken every 20-30 mins through the night by a patrolling warden, who was regularly checking the dorm because of a recent spate of suicides. He has been on anti-depressants since that time and suffers night terrors. His crime, to be treated so harshly? None.

The vast majority of those houses in places like Yarlswood, will eventually be denied asylum and put on a plane back, either to their country of origin, or, if we have arbitraily decided that we don't believe their story and assigned them a new nationality, we'll send them to that country.

I honestly do not know why it is that we have a reputation in the press and amongst other nations as a country that is easy to get into: it really isn't. Amongst the refugee communities themselves, and along the information channels running through and between disparate groups of those at risk, or considering flight: Britain is considered a desirable place, in that once asylum is granted the standard of living available is good; however, gaining asylum is known to be extremely difficult.

Approximarely 98% of cases are refused at first hearing. Now it used to be that they could get two appeals to that. On the second appeal, the figure refused is still high: by the third appeal, which was heard at a higher level, about 60% of those refusals were overturned. Now: there is only one appeal, and it can only be instigated if fresh evidence can be brought. Clearly, the first hearing is failing a lot of genuine asylum seekers. rather than ensure that the first stage works properly so appeals would be less needed, they have just made it virtually impossible to appeal.

Everything, and I mean everything, in the asylum process is designed to deter and obstruct.

Reading all that, it almost makes me glad we don't have a meaningful asylum process to speak of. Better to just let them sneak in illegally--if they can work and make a life for themselves, so be it. You can bet they won't be sending any of their money back to their home countries like many of the Mexican immigrants do.

I agree Clod.

Once someone has been granted asylum/refugee status and is no longer an 'Asylum Seeker'; then they are given full support and assistance in settling. But as long as they are 'Asylum Seekers' they are treated like dirt under our feet, and they can sometimes remain in that limbo for years at a time: unable to work, or settle, or build a life whilst they await a decision that might send them back to the place they fled.

The mental and emotional stress we place these people under is obscene. The people who deal with them within the system often (mostly) treat them in a rude, off-hand, or downright aggressive fashion. They are treated as if they are criminals, from the moment they arrive.

In popular culture meanwhile, they have been demonized over the past twenty years or so, to the point that the term 'Asylum Seeker' feels almost bare without the addition of the word 'Bogus' at the front of it.

This whole thing has reminded me of a brilliant essay I read once. It's by the Australian SF author, Greg Egan. It's called 'No Sugar'.

Anybody wavering on the issue of asylum should read this piece. It's wonderful.

http://gregegan.customer.netspace.ne...GAR/Sugar.html