Stabbed asylum seeker wants to return home

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON, AUG 9. If he does go back home, Mr. Davoud Rasul Naseri would be confounding a lot of Britons who think asylum seekers are here to ``sponge'' and would put up with anything for a place under the uncertain British sun.

After a racist attack on him on Tuesday, the 22-year- old Iranian said he hated Glasgow where he had been ``dumped'' with 2,000 other refugees and wanted to return home preferring political persecution in his native country to a dangerous existence on a bleak housing estate in Scotland. Three days ago, he saw a fellow refugee murdered and now his own life seemed to be at a knife's edge. ``I don't feel safe any longer. I just feel that I hate Glasgow and I hate the people in Glasgow. With this situation I just want to stay in my country; it would be better because I would be killed because of my (political) aims, not because of nothing'', Mr. Naseri told journalists. And then lifting his shirt to show a stitched knife-wound on his back, he added: ``In Iran if they kill me it will be in my face, not an attack from behind. We must all leave here. In a few months these people will kill again.'' A group of white teenagers who believe that every foreigner is ``black'', called him ``black b...'' as he was putting down his rubbish bin right outside his flat and then stabbed him several times in the back.

Police said they were treating it as a racist attack - second in three days. Like Firsat Yildiz, the young Kurd murdered on Sunday, Mr. Naseri came to Britain over a year ago to claim asylum from political persecution at home. Now he wonders if it was such a good idea. ``I thought being in Iran was bad, but living here is just as bad,'' he said echoing a common refrain on Glasgow's Sighthill housing estate which has seen a spate of attacks on refugees in recent months.

The Independent in a front-page story today recounted the refugees' tales of horror. A Kurd neighbour of Mr. Naseri alleged that he was intimidated every night after he returned home from work. ``Sometimes my shift ends at 4 a.m. and they are waiting for me''. A young Iranian woman, with a small son, said she was too scared to go out. ``Everyone told me Scots were warm and nice but all we got was stones, abuse and attacks'', she said. Her sense of insecurity had deepened after the murder of Yildiz and the stabbing of Mr. Naseri. One local newspaper has angered refugees with an ``inflammatory'' report on Yildiz saying he was not fleeing political persecution but had come here to enjoy ``British lifestyle'' and was a ``conman who came to this country to make a fast buck.''

Sighthill is a cluster of tower blocks which had been marked for demolition before they were requisitioned by the local council for asylum seekers. The policy of housing such a large number of asylum-seekers in a poverty- ridden area where people are already struggling to survive has come under attack and the Government is under pressure to stop sending more refugees to Sighthill. ``People in Sighthill are poor, neglected and uneducated and they were not prepared by the council or the Government for the arrival of so many asylum-seekers. They believe the refugees are getting a better deal'', a spokeswoman for local residents has been quoted as saying.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : International
Previous : Clock ticking away in Northern Ireland
Next     : Ambush kills Macedonian soldiers, peace plan