What happened this week wasn't just big, it was life changing and it is with the express approval of Nasser that I will tell his story and how much an impact this seemingly small happening has made to him. I first met Nasser in Syria in 2009 while working there. I always travelled with my tennis rackets in those days in the hope that someone would have a hit with me. In Syria it was Nasser and his friends who made me very welcome. It was good tennis too.
Fast forward from 2009 to this week, 7th December, 2023: over this time our lives accidentally became entwined. Because Nasser stood for his moral values and refused to support the Syrian regime in its civil war that started in the Arab Spring on March 15th, 2011 opposing the people of Syria, this decision cost him dear. This choice almost cost him his life. It cost him his properties and his luxury lifestyle. It caused his extended family to suffer. It turned his life upside down. He still harbours guilt at how many lives he has dragged into this.
He avoided getting involved in the conflict and kept his thoughts private but this didn't save him. On August 22nd 2012, he was threatened with a gun at his head and thrown into a hole in the ground. He was labelled a traitor of the regime. For the next 181 days his companions - lice and other nasties shared his underground cell. He lived with the uncertaintity of whether he would survive this prison ordeal. I cannot imagine being trapped like that for a few hours, leave alone that long. It drove him crazy.
He was imprisoned for over six months in all and came through the ordeal. He and his extended family fled Syria for Turkey on his release. As the regime would pick up anyone who was linked to Nasser, no one in his family could safely stay in the country. That meant all his brothers needed to leave too.
Nasser left his family in Turkey and went on to Sweden where he believed he would find safety and sanctuary. He didn't. He was considered a dangerous man so Sweden wouldn't grant him residency. They gave his brothers residency so they got on with their lives in a new land. Nasser couldn't even leave the country to help get his wife, Amira and his three children to join him. They came over the Mediterranean in an old, rickety boat.
Amira set off from Egypt for Italy with smugglers. You hear of so many of these boats sinking. Their journey wasn't without incident. They nearly lost Kenan, who was two at the time, overboard. They got to Sweden and settled but Nasser could not work. He was an illegal immigrant. In 2019 the authorities said he was to be deported back to Syria where ne knew he would face certain death.
With limited options, he planned to come to the UK on a false passport. On January 20th 2020, he arrived, delcared himself an asylum seeker and was immediately jailed. The UN convention states you should not lock up victims of torture. Good old Britain! This is where I come in. I arrived home on February 1st, 2020 and very soon received an email from Nasser. He wanted advice. I told him, I'd get him out of jail but first I had to prove I was a trustworthy, upright citizen (don't laugh). Fortunately, I knew someone who knew our local MP so that was a good shortcut.
Nasser's deportation to Sweden was stopped and I picked him up from Morton Hall on March 9th, 2020. He was a wreck. From then on, our lives were thrown together and we spent all of lockdown in each other's company. Neither of us had ever been with one other person for so long before. It could have gone tits up.
We are still friends! The Home Office have been abominable but after nearly 4 years they have come good and stamped the document giving Nasser his first secure place since being thrown in prison on November 28th.
At this point, I must praise the good work of Duncan Lewis - the law firm who deal with such cases. The amount of trauma they must see everyday must affect the lawyers who fight for the rights of victims of torture and persecution. Darren, from Duncan Lewis, needed to give Nasser lots of reassurance that sending his BRP off to the Home Office didn't mean he was going to be thrown out of the country. To think, I have been saving up for a trip to Rwanda to visit Nasser if he ended up there. Now I need new holiday plans!
So the Home Office have given Nasser the best Christmas present ever. He can hold his head high knowing that people believe him to be a good man. He has sanctuary for the first time since 22nd August, 2012. I live in hope that so many other people who are in this position can be given shelter. I always think: there but for the grace of God, go I. A UK passport is a passport of value!
I wrote a chapter for a book - The Lockdown Diaries - my chapter tells the story of my lockdown with Nasser. Click on the link Lockdown
No comments:
Post a Comment