A Report from US to YOU about Something Important (September 19, 2008)

It was such a difficult time...

All the brains were fully occupied. Financial problems, being insulted all around or not even feeling safe to go out... But no one was complaining. Wishing for a day to forget about the past and start a new life in a free country. They were all surrounded by big walls made of no results of interview, no resettlement country and even long period of waiting for an interview with a UNHCR's legal officer". Searching for a ray of light.

Everybody was doing their best; emails, faxes, asking help from different organizations in Turkey or even try to handle the heavy expenses to travel to Ankara to office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugee, hoping to achieve some kind of understanding by the officials in charge. Unfortunately the schedules were far too busy to be changed.

When Arsham Parsi came over, no one was really hopeful for any changes. He had a pre-scheduled appointment with Canadian Embassy and UNHCR in Ankara. He was accompanied with a group of asylums by that time, hoping for a miracle to happen.

We never knew what happened or what was brought about that day but lots of good news started to spread all over after a few days.

Mehdi and Atlan were recognized by UNHCR as a refugee and Canadian Embassy accepted their files and they will immigrate to Canada in few months. After a long period of waiting, finally Hamid and Saman's files were accepted by Canadian embassy too.

Mohammad, after being interviewed twice by UNHCR and waiting for eleven months with no definite results, was finally recognized as a refugee. Especially that his partner was recognized eleven months ago but had no progress in his file and status due to waiting for the decision to be made about his partner. Finally both of the files were accepted by Canadian embassy too and they will have their happy life in Canada.

Legal interview dates of three people were scheduled to be done in four to ten months in advance.  Wish you could see that glance in their eyes, giving them enough power to go on.

We are all hoping that these awesome results due to Arsham Parsi's visit and his great struggle will never end.

On behalf of queer refugees here in Turkey, we are wishing Arsham Parsi and his organization best of luck, and more success.

Thanks for always being there

Number of Iranian Queer refugee in Turkey

September 19, 2008

مطالب چراغ را همراه با اسم چراغ بازچاپ کنید.