Iranian asylum-seekers on hunger strike

A hunger strike by eight Iranian nationals who failed in their bid to receive refugee status from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) on Monday entered its fifteenth day in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. The eight said they were more determined than ever to reverse the UN agency’s decision while at the same time highlighting what they claim to be “unfair” deficiencies within the application process. “I am prepared to die,” Vahed Yunesi, told IRIN, a 22-year-old former student activist from the Iranian capital, Tehran, and the youngest hunger striker of the group. “I have no choice. I can’t go back to Iran.” Visibly weak, Yunesi, who has been in Pakistan for 15 months seeking recognition as a refugee and resettlement in a “safe” country, said his fate would be sealed if he returned to Iran. “If you look at my file, you will know what will happen to me,” he said. According to Yunesi, his father was executed and his brother imprisoned for political activities against the current government. Yunesi said he was tortured and jailed for six months himself in Iran, and applied for refugee status 15 months ago but was given a final denial on appeal on 15 October 2000. Surviving only on water once a day, he has now threatened to stop drinking at the end of the week unless his application is reviewed. “This is the last defence of their case,” Arash Vaisi, spokesman for the Iranian Asylum Seekers and Refugees Committee (IASRC), an ad hoc group of 300 asylum seekers and recognised refugees supporting the hunger strikers in Islamabad, told IRIN. “Many of these people have been here for more than two years with no place to go. As members of political groups opposed to the current regime, these people would be jailed, tortured and imprisoned if they returned to Iran.” “This [hunger strike] is meant to be a protest against the refugee policy of your office,” an IASRC letter to UNHCR, dated 10 March, stated. “Each of these people are trying, by putting their own lives in a deadly situation, to show to you that that they do not have a chance of returning to Iran.” Vaisi criticised the agency’s handling of the situation and was adamant that changes needed to be made in three areas of the application process. “This office lacks a qualified Iranian translator, which results in many of the cases being misunderstood or overlooked. Using Afghan nationals, as they do now for translations, is simply not a viable option.” He also said that waiting up to two years to have cases heard was “impossible for any family to endure.” Vaisi said. In conclusion, he added: “There seems to be a lack of awareness within UNHCR here regarding the current realities of Iran with regard to human rights.” On Saturday, the eight hunger strikers were taken by the police to a hospital, where they were advised by doctors to end their protest. They refused. “Their health is in a very bad condition and I would advise them to eat something,” a doctor on duty was quoted as saying by the Pakistani daily ‘The News’. Philip Karani, head of UNHCR’s legal division in Islamabad, called the hunger strike “regrettable”, and called on the eight people to reconsider their actions. “These are applicants whose refugee status was denied upon appeal. After the first interview, if an applicant is rejected, they have a right to appeal. If that appeal is unsuccessful, then a final rejection is given,” he said. Karani said that UNHCR considers cases for refugee status on an individual basis and in doing so concluded that these applicants did not possess the necessary criteria for refugee status. “We apply the internationally accepted definition of a refugee in our criteria, stipulating that applicants have to demonstrate a well-founded fear of persecution for political, religious or ethnic reasons.” According to Karani, UNHCR in Islamabad has to date received 728 Iranian applications seeking refugee status. Of these, 523 cases have been accepted, 121 cases are pending, and 84 cases were rejected on appeal. “Most Iranian applications, in fact, have been accepted,” he said. This is the second incident involving Iranian nationals denied refugee status by UNHCR in Islamabad in less than three months. On 12 December, Pakistani police used tear gas to disperse demonstrators at the refugee agency’s office after a large group of protestors forced their way into the complex. They occupied several rooms and took at least one person hostage after requests by 74 Iranians for refugee status were denied.