Refugee held hostage in Europe seeking justice and freedom

KATHMANDU, July 7: Anwar Nillufary, a 37-year-old Stateless Kurd, a Civil Engineer by profession, arrived a decade ago in Europe following a number of circumstances, where he had to flee his country due to being a political activist raising voices for social reforms. He has been facing various hardships in Greece where he has been living as a refugee. According to Nillufary, a recognized refugee by Greece with legal status, he was unlawfully deported to Greece from Sweden in 2015 on the basis of the Dublin Regulations, despite its suspension for Greece at the time which was a direct consequence of false and incomplete information provided to him by the Greek authorities and NGOs based in the country a year prior to his departure for Sweden. This led to his suffering for all these years.

Nillufary has been living in scarcity facing problems like hunger, thirst, and many other livelihood problems. He has stationed himself in front of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office at Michalakopoulou 91, Athens 115, 28, Greece, as a protest to the injustice done to him. His pursuit of justice and freedom has always been ignored and opposed by the authorities in Greece.

The UNHCR is the official organization that has the responsibility for the refugees, but what it has done is ignored the issues of his well-being and deprived him of his basic needs, like food and water. 

"They are forcing Refugees into slavery and pretending nothing is happening," Nillufary has said in an article by himself on LinkedIn, a social networking website. 

He has been relying on donations for survival and has urged the UNHCR to forward the matter of his illegal deportation from Sweden to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which the UNHCR has been turning a blind eye to.

When he has been requesting the UNHCR time and again for resettlement in other countries, which the organization can do, his requests have been ignored for far too long now.

“Ever since being held Hostage and subjected to complete deprivation, I have come to believe that this treatment is part of a concerted effort to illegally push refugees back and deny them asylum,” wrote Nillufary in a mail to Ratopati.

He has stationed himself outside of the UNHCR office since March 21st, 2017 after approximately two years of persistent, yet unsuccessful endeavors in securing legal and survival aid from numerous human rights organizations located in the country. But instead of providing him aid, he became trapped in an interminable cycle in which each organization simply referred him to another.

The number of individuals who may have perished or whose lives have been utterly devastated due to these heinous acts, as he recalls is hard to count. He has been requesting people to help, by donating so that he can meet his daily needs. He has been asking people from all over the world whom he can reach out, to spread the information of his dire situation, as he has claimed that they are now trying to end his life. 

“They dispatch their agents to pester you regularly, utilizing a plethora of techniques. I recall visiting one of their facilities many years ago for a shower, but as I was about to enter the bath, they shut off the hot water and gave us only a five-minute deadline to complete everything,” he informed.

He had no other option than position himself outside the UNHCR office, intending to not solely request aid for his immediate resettlement in another country but also for the provision of means of livelihood. 

He went on his first Hunger Strike back in 2017, which lasted for 64 days. But even though it brought public attention, the issues were not addressed. 

He went on a hunger strike again in 2020, which lasted for 73 days. He endured his second hunger strike on the pavement without shelter. Due to Gallstone attacks resulting from his 2nd Hunger Strike, he was hospitalized for the second time, which has hampered his health to this date with complications like the formation of gallstones in his Gallbladder, and his further physical deterioration. For a 37-year-old man, he weighs less than 30 kilograms, and he has sent his recent pictures that show the state he is in.

He has been forced into a constant state of starvation ever since. The availability of food for him is possible only through donations from his Fundraising Campaign, and the donations he gets are less than 70 Euros per month, which is far less than sufficient for survival. There have only been 17 in-person donations made to him to date, of which he has kept records too.

He has had economic crises time and again, and the destruction of his 6th shelter along with his clothes and belongings had left him no other option than to sleep in the bushes amidst the infestation of rats and ants in 2021. 

On the 19th of May, 2023, he had a one-hour-long discussion with two representatives from UNHCR, where it became abundantly apparent that the organization has not yet fully understood the severity of the transgression committed against him in Greece, but instead, they foolishly persisted in advocating for his continued incarceration and subjugation in this country where a decade of his life has been wasted, informed Nillufary. This is why they neglected to satisfy his request, formally conveyed, to invite the representatives from the Canadian, American, and Australian embassies to convene at the negotiation table where they could deliberate a Safe Passage and discuss his rights to settle in one of those countries, he added.

According to Nillufary, before the meeting, he had also requested hard copies of a set of documents as well as one of his emails in particular, which they did not provide. Owing to financial constraints, he was unable to furnish the copies. This, in turn, became a point of contention from the outset to the end of the discussion, which ultimately adjourned to a later but yet-to-be-specified date in the future.

However, it has been understood that during the course of their tense discussion, he strongly urged the organization to end its unlawful efforts regarding his imprisonment and enslavement in Greece. Additionally, he respectfully requested their assistance in bringing his case to the attention of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to pursue a resolution to his dire situation through the Court. Finally, prior to concluding the meeting, with deference to the aforementioned parties, he requested the presence of the Greek Minister of Immigration to tender his apologies and make amends at the ensuing meeting and emphasized the necessity of involving the UNHCR High Commissioner, Filippo Grandi, to expeditiously bring about a resolution to this protracted Hostage-taking issue in Greece.

Nillufary, a victim of torture living in scarcity has been longing for freedom for a long time now, with nothing and no one but himself with his weary body. There is no life for him in Greece where his voice has been constantly ignored, has even been assaulted, left without care and even his existence is scorned and unappreciated. 

In addition to visiting their embassies in person, he has once again requested mediation from the Japanese, Indian and South African Embassies via email in order to help find a resolution to this ongoing Hostage-taking issue expeditiously. He formally reiterated his request to the UNHCR once again on June 21st, 2023, as a follow-up to his critical email from September 12th, 2022, which the organization has intentionally chosen not to acknowledge to this day.

This proves that the so-called humanitarians are not working for the sake of humanity but only for the sake of their interests by practicing modern-day slavery led by bureaucracy.

He has put forth various inquiries to draw the attention of the respective people and organizations,

“If indeed they are aiding Refugees, then why have none of the purported Humanitarian and Human Rights NGOs in Greece provided any form of assistance to my case despite being well aware of it?”

“Aside from the illegal Push Backs, could these inhumane treatments be indicative of a strategy to prepare refugees for servitude in Europe without any basic rights or freedoms in the event that they do not attain their primary objectives?”

“Why is the UNHCR turning blind eyes to the overwhelming evidence provided to them and rather than serving my interests, a Refugee’s interest, actively working against me?”

He has requested assistance from countless agencies and governments till now and contacted Ratopati for help in pointing out the issue. He wrote to us, "Everything I had is taken away from me, and now they're trying to take my life too."

Numerous more legitimate inquiries can be derived from the articles he has shared with us.
Here are the links to some of his most recent articles: 
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/humanitarians-tormentarians-why-arent-doing-job-anwar-nillufary/
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/enemy-camp-unhcr-meeting-anwar-nillufary/
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/tortured-hunger-three-years-later-anwar-nillufary