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Friday 2nd December, 2005

PUBLICATION

By MAIRI MACDONALD

SECTIONS

NAVIGATION

School fights to keep pupil in Britain

Anger at deportation of Iranian

TEACHERS and pupils have mounted a campaign to stop the deportation of one of their sixth form pupils and friend.
Behnam, 18 – he has asked for his full name to be withheld – who studies at Quintin Kynaston in Swiss Cottage, claims he is facing five years in prison and 70 lashings if he is made to return to his home country of Iran.
He and his family moved to London in 2003 when his father started working at a shipping company.
But in August Behnam and his mother Masoumeh, who live in Hamstead, were sentenced in absentia by an Iranian Revolutionary Court to five and seven year jail sentences and 70 lashings.
They were found guilty of collaborating with the Mujahadin, an outlawed opposition organisation, after Iranian authorities found anti-government leaflets were being printed in their Tehran flat while the family were living in England.
“My friends were staying in our flat while they finished their studies,” he said. “I knew they were Mujahadin people but I did not know they were using the flat to make leaflets and when police raided them they found their photocopier.”
The men were arrested and questioned in April.
Behnam and his mother’s situation worsened when their application for asylum was rejected in September after his father was arrested at Tehran airport on his return to start a new job.
His wife and sons chose to stay in England while Behnam finished his A-levels at Quintin Kynaston and his father has not been heard from since.
Two of Behnam’s teachers Pauline Levis and David Davies have been working around the clock since September.
Ms Levis said: “I am completely dismayed and outraged by the suffering this delightful family are going through at the hands, not only, of the Iranian authorities, but also the British Home Office whose motto is ‘building a safe, just and tolerant society’.
“The family claimed asylum in the UK but despite evidence that included authenticated documents form the Iranian court their story was not believed and their claim was rejected. It again failed on appeal. A further appeal has been lodged to a tribunal but it is not yet known if this will even be heard.”
Mr Davies has written to the family’s MP for Hampstead and Highgate Glenda Jackson asking for support as the family live in fear of early deportation. Ms Jackson said: “There is nothing I can do until the appeal has been granted.”
A demonstration in support of the family organised by Behnam’s friends and teachers at Quintin Kynaston is expected to take place next week.
Fellow student Vera Kolla, 19, told how even teachers cried when they were told of his deportation at school . She said: “Behnam was the first person who spoke to me when I joined the school, he is passionate about art and has introduced me to galleries that I would not have known about otherwise.”
The Home Office have told the family’s lawyer Mr Mazaheri that their case will be heard at an immigration appeals tribunal within two weeks. A spokesman for the Home Office said they refused to comment on individual cases.

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