Failed asylum seeker on hunger strike

AN IRANIAN failed asylum seeker is entering his 20th day of a hunger strike at Larnaca police station today.

The 43-year-old was arrested on March 7 after his visa expired. He has refused to let food pass through his mouth since, surviving only on water and tea with sugar.

A police official told the Cyprus Mail yesterday that Ali Asgari was arrested for being illegally on the island. He confirmed that Asgari has been on a hunger strike for almost three weeks. The officer described him as “thin but OK”.

According to his wife, Azar Ahmady, the family arrived in Cyprus eight years ago, seeking asylum. Their application was rejected last year. They are currently waiting for their appeal to be heard before the Supreme Court.

Ahmady said police moved him from Larnaca police station to Kofinou detention centre, but due to his deteriorating health, sent him back to Larnaca last Monday.

Asgari has been to hospital twice since he began the hunger strike, said his wife.

“He is very weak, and had heart problems last Thursday and Monday. But he won’t let them use a drip on him. I have stopped taking my son to see him because he gets very upset, he’s not taking it so well,” she said.

The couple live in Nicosia with their 11-year-old son and 16-year-old daughter.

Asked why her husband was on hunger strike, the wife said: “Because he is very angry, because we are aliens here after eight years, we don’t have anything, we cannot work, don’t have anything. He has had enough.”

Ahmady claimed that her husband was even beaten in custody because he complained about not being allowed to make a phone call when other inmates were afforded the right.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.