"Stop British police policy against asylum seekers" - Omid Karimi
'My name is Omid Karimi. I’m a Kurdish refugee from Iran. I fled to Britain in August 2004. I was member of the Komala party in northern Iraq, which is the region of the Kurdish people. We were against the Islamic republic of Iran. I became a political activist there in 2000.




In 2003, when the war in Iraq began, I asked myself lots of questions including 'where are the human rights against this war?' I left my party because they didn’t have any reaction against the war. In fact, they were dancing in front of their offices in Suleimania, which is one of the most famous cities in Kurdistan. They clearly accepted that the killing of children and working class people by imperialism was right.




I had to leave Iraq in 2004 and I came to England. The racist British immigration system rejected my case even though I was an activist against the oppressive Iranian regime. Also the asylum and immigration courts representing imperialist justice condemned my life, rejecting three more appeals after my initial refusal.


Now I have joined and am one of the activists of the Workers Communist Party of Iran (Hekmatist). I am also a member of the International Organisation of Iranian Refugees (IOIR). I am struggling to build an equal society and fighting for freedom.




Since I have been rejected I am not entitled to any support, except section 4. I have been housed along with three other refugees in a 1-bedroom house, by the section 4-accommodation provider, M&Q properties. I have been there for five months now. The four of us have to sleep in the bathroom or on the floor. One of my housemates, Mohammad is very ill and is on dialysis treatment because he doesn’t have kidneys.





On Friday, 26 November 2007, Mohammad and me had an argument about house cleaning. Unfortunately our landlord M&Q, caused this incident because I told them several times that we can’t live with Mohammad, but the M&Q landlords are making a lot of profit from asylum seekers in Britain. I know that this is part of the worldwide system against poor people and the working class.


Mohammad called the police and told them that I punched him which I had not. When the racist police officers came to my house I was very relaxed and I told them that I never punched him and that I have got my friend as a witness. The officer said to me ‘you are arrested under the law’. They didn’t allow me to put on my coat and they put me in their van where they also put their dogs. They didn’t move off for about half an hour so I got angry and kicked their car door with my feet. I asked them ‘why have you arrested me?’ ‘You want to humiliate me in the street?’




As I continued to kick the police car they had to move, they took me to Longsight police station. How shameful it was for me to be there, I am not a criminal. I shouted at them: ‘you are racist and you are not human.’ I felt like I was in an Iranian security centre. They said to me ‘you have got a right to get a solicitor’, after that they put me in their cell.


After an hour, I told them I want to contact my friends, but they didn’t allow me to use my phone. My solicitor had told me he was coming to see me as soon as possible when I spoke to him on the phone before I got to the cell. I became more anxious and when I asked the police for my solicitor, they just ignored me. Then they told me my solicitor had arrived but that I was asleep which I wasn’t.


I began kicking the cell’s door and asked them for my solicitor and my doctor. They brought a police office that pretended to be a doctor. He said to me ‘there is nothing wrong with you.’ I told him ‘you are just a racist officer, you are not a doctor. I am sick and I need my personal GP or a doctor from hospital’. But they ignored me again.


In fact I’m very ill and I have to go to hospital for physiotherapy. I told their doctor to go and check my details in the MRI hospital in Manchester and to contact my GP about me, but no the imperialist official terrorist didn’t do it.




I continued to kick my cell’s door and shouted at the Longsight police calling them racists and imperialists. I told them to stop killing asylum seekers in their custody. They ordered me to clean the cell for them! They finally contacted my solicitor at about 4pm on Saturday, 27 November, and I was eventually released that evening at 7pm on bail. They bailed me to report back on 26 November 2007 at Longsight police station.'







Omid Karimi


 omidkarimi58@yahoo.com