Refugee Anwar Nillufary, who has been kept waiting in Greece for nearly six years and has been on hunger strike for 54 days in front of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Athens Office, spoke to Evrensel.
Ercüment AKDENİZ
İstanbul
The Dublin Convention, ruling that refugees must pursue their asylum procedures in the first country they set foot on in Europe, led to him being sent back from Sweden to Greece. Anwar Nillufary (34), who has been kept waiting for nearly six years in Greece and has been on hunger strike for 54 days, spoke to Evrensel: “They’ve jailed me five times, brought me to court 23 times and confiscated my phone three times. No protective conditions remain in Greece and I want to be sent to a third country.”
Anwar Nillufary is a civil engineer having graduated from Salahaddin University in Erbil/Iraq. Exiled from Iran and a political refugee for fifteen years, Nillufary took refuge in Europe. He said, “I came to Greece having diced with death on the Aegean Sea. The smugglers said we’d be in Greece in one and a half hours. But the horrific journey took twelve hours. There were 34 of us in the boat and we all thought we’d die. It was a miracle we reached Europe.”
Defining himself as a Kurdish political refugee for his ideas, Nillufary commented, “I don’t really see Iran as my country. If I’m sent back, it’ll be either prison or death. So, I ended up a refugee. The savings I earned as an engineer have run out here in exile. They’ve held me in Greece against my will for a full six years. I can’t get international protection. This is why I’m protesting against the UNHCR and calling on them to do their job.”
Nillufary, who took his first 64-day hunger strike action in 2017, is on the 54th day of his second hunger strike. The action has as its venue the door of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office located in Athens. Anwar set out the reason for so acting as follows:
“Sweden deported me in September 2015. It sent me to the first EU country I had reached based on the Dublin Convention. The UN fell in line with this. If this is how EU internal legislation stacks up, the UN should hand me over to an office outside the EU. Greece, you see, has turned my years into captivity. There’s no democracy for refugees in Greece. I’ve written to the prime minister, ministers and parliament countless times. I’ve called out to the European Commission. In return, I’ve been brought to court 23 times, jailed five times and had my mobile phone confiscated three times. They expect us to work for less than the nothing immigrants get. They should apologize to me. They need to compensate for the irreparable harm they’ve done to my life.”
Noting that he needs medicinal and vitamin support on hunger strike, Anwar said, “Neither a doctor, nor medical controls nor vitamin support have come from the UNHCR. I need medical support. I haven’t received legal support, either. Support from a lawyer is essential. The UNHCR office needs to know that I have no protective conditions in Greece. They cannot force me to remain here. They should give consideration to my request to be relocated in a country outside the EU. It’s impossible for them not to see me, but they don’t!”
Anwar Nillufar continued as follows, pointing to the absence of solidarity from civil organizations in Athens:
“Nobody has come from NGOs, either. However, the have vanished my tent here five times. I call out to all people. They should at least come here and hear my voice. I am not asking the UN to help me because this is their job! If nothing else, people should alert the UN to my demand to seek refuge in a third country.”
Bülent Falakaoğlu
Hakkı Özdal
