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Iranian asylum seeker, Omid Karimi, speaks out against racist police and asylum

NWASDG | 17.11.2007 20:43 | Anti-racism | World

Omid Karimi is a Kurdish asylum seeker from Iran. The Kurds are an oppressed minority in Iran. Britain deported 315 Iranians between January and June 2007. Thousands of asylum seekers are left to rot, slowly starving to death on electronic vouchers; many are not allowed to work. Many are forced to live in appalling conditions including in the worst housing, while the British Home Office's NASS-contracted accommodation providers like M&Q, make huge profits every year.


The following is a letter sent to NWASDG from Omid Karimi after he was arrested one night after an argument with one of the four people squeezed into a 1-bedroom house in Longsight, a suburb of Manchester. Under these conditions conflict is inevitable. The ultimate responsibility lies with the racist British Labour government whose racist asylum laws oppress asylum seekers, disperse them to areas where they have no social support and forces them into poverty, destitution and homelessness. - NWASDG











"Stop British police policy against asylum seekers" - Omid Karimi
'My name is Omid Karimi. I’m a Kurdish refugee from Iran. I fled to Britain in August 2004. I was member of the Komala party in northern Iraq, which is the region of the Kurdish people. We were against the Islamic republic of Iran. I became a political activist there in 2000.




In 2003, when the war in Iraq began, I asked myself lots of questions including 'where are the human rights against this war?' I left my party because they didn’t have any reaction against the war. In fact, they were dancing in front of their offices in Suleimania, which is one of the most famous cities in Kurdistan. They clearly accepted that the killing of children and working class people by imperialism was right.




I had to leave Iraq in 2004 and I came to England. The racist British immigration system rejected my case even though I was an activist against the oppressive Iranian regime. Also the asylum and immigration courts representing imperialist justice condemned my life, rejecting three more appeals after my initial refusal.


Now I have joined and am one of the activists of the Workers Communist Party of Iran (Hekmatist). I am also a member of the International Organisation of Iranian Refugees (IOIR). I am struggling to build an equal society and fighting for freedom.




Since I have been rejected I am not entitled to any support, except section 4. I have been housed along with three other refugees in a 1-bedroom house, by the section 4-accommodation provider, M&Q properties. I have been there for five months now. The four of us have to sleep in the bathroom or on the floor. One of my housemates, Mohammad is very ill and is on dialysis treatment because he doesn’t have kidneys.





On Friday, 26 November 2007, Mohammad and me had an argument about house cleaning. Unfortunately our landlord M&Q, caused this incident because I told them several times that we can’t live with Mohammad, but the M&Q landlords are making a lot of profit from asylum seekers in Britain. I know that this is part of the worldwide system against poor people and the working class.


Mohammad called the police and told them that I punched him which I had not. When the racist police officers came to my house I was very relaxed and I told them that I never punched him and that I have got my friend as a witness. The officer said to me ‘you are arrested under the law’. They didn’t allow me to put on my coat and they put me in their van where they also put their dogs. They didn’t move off for about half an hour so I got angry and kicked their car door with my feet. I asked them ‘why have you arrested me?’ ‘You want to humiliate me in the street?’




As I continued to kick the police car they had to move, they took me to Longsight police station. How shameful it was for me to be there, I am not a criminal. I shouted at them: ‘you are racist and you are not human.’ I felt like I was in an Iranian security centre. They said to me ‘you have got a right to get a solicitor’, after that they put me in their cell.


After an hour, I told them I want to contact my friends, but they didn’t allow me to use my phone. My solicitor had told me he was coming to see me as soon as possible when I spoke to him on the phone before I got to the cell. I became more anxious and when I asked the police for my solicitor, they just ignored me. Then they told me my solicitor had arrived but that I was asleep which I wasn’t.


I began kicking the cell’s door and asked them for my solicitor and my doctor. They brought a police office that pretended to be a doctor. He said to me ‘there is nothing wrong with you.’ I told him ‘you are just a racist officer, you are not a doctor. I am sick and I need my personal GP or a doctor from hospital’. But they ignored me again.


In fact I’m very ill and I have to go to hospital for physiotherapy. I told their doctor to go and check my details in the MRI hospital in Manchester and to contact my GP about me, but no the imperialist official terrorist didn’t do it.




I continued to kick my cell’s door and shouted at the Longsight police calling them racists and imperialists. I told them to stop killing asylum seekers in their custody. They ordered me to clean the cell for them! They finally contacted my solicitor at about 4pm on Saturday, 27 November, and I was eventually released that evening at 7pm on bail. They bailed me to report back on 26 November 2007 at Longsight police station.'







Omid Karimi


 omidkarimi58@yahoo.com

NWASDG
- e-mail: fightback_05@yahoo.com
- Homepage: http://www.asylum-seekers-defence.org.uk/wiki/index.php?title=Iranian_asylum_seeker%2C_Omid_Karimi%2C_speaks_out_against_racist_police_and_asylum_system

Comments

Hide the following 6 comments

racism

17.11.2007 21:45

well he may complain but it could be worse he could be a british pensioner who after paying tax in his country all their lives find the system doesnt care and would love all the benefits the immigrants are getting obviously they shouldnt complain after all what have they ever given the country that they should be looked after better than foreigners

some people are so selfish

doodle


Doode,

18.11.2007 18:52

Haven't you read the post or are you stupid? Asylum seekers are not allowed to work - they would like to work rather than live on £35 a week in voucheurs, if the Home Office did not prevent them - and are sqeezed 4 in a 1 bedroom flat in substandard accomadation...while the landlords make the profit and the brainwashed repeat the racist propaganda that asylum seekers come here to live on our rich benefits and take 'our' houses...in fact they are housed separately, in houses nobody wants. Stop reding the Sun and start thinking with your brain, if you have one.

me


shabba

19.11.2007 16:58

no thats hat the guardian wants you to think why do these people come here to flee "pursecution" no because they can get a free house and benefits that they cant get in their own country you guys really need to wake up

foam


check my bad self

19.11.2007 18:06

maybe he should find another country to live in if he doesnt like it here noones stopping him from fucking off maybe then he'll be graeful we let him into this country in the first place

wobble


Racist fools

21.11.2007 10:40

You lot of racists are better off reaading the Daily Star or some other right wing pile of crap.
You sold your souls to the devil...

Fuck racists
- Homepage: http://www.stupidenglishand I am english;)


Racist no reasonable yes

21.11.2007 13:59

yes we sold our souls to the devil because we care about the country thats right

go and have a rest in a dark room

with all the benefits paid to foriegn nationals that have just arrived here without paying any tax and getting free houses and healthcare etc its pitiful that people like you cry racism whenever someone brings this topic up

this countries going down the toilet where fat people cannot get medical attention, pensioners left to rot in filthy hospitals and our troops dying due to crap equipment (whatever your opinion of the war)

the list is endless

where is the money to sort out this problem? the government says it doesnt have i but why give all this money to foriegners when their own countrymen cannot even claim them? do you think thats fair? if you do you must be stupid as you will see when you try and get a council house but find out you wont have a chance as people from another country are seen as more important that surely would piss anyone off seeing as youve paid tax all your life and should be entitled to this.

Mr shoe


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