- Jared Phillips
from The Spark October 2007
Defenders of human and migrant rights are celebrating. On September 3, Iranian detainee Ali Panah was released from the Mt. Eden Remand Centre after fasting against imprisonment and government attempts to deport him. Also in September, the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) was finally forced to stop their persecution of Ahmed Zaoui, and lifted the security risk certificate placed upon him in March 2003.
Ali Panah lived and worked in New Zealand for more than two years before being arrested for overstaying. In Mt. Eden remand centre he refused to sign deportation papers that would allow the government to send him back to Iran where it would be legal for him to be executed because he is a Christian convert. Ali Panah had been detained at Mt. Eden remand centre for more than one and a half years before he entered a 53-day fast (hunger strike) in July of this year. Throughout this period he has had the support of the Anglican church and his local employer.
The media and protest campaign to free Ali Panah was led by an Iranian group and Global Peace and Justice Auckland and was supported by the Workers Party and anarchists. This campaign contributed to the release of Ali Panah. Green Party MP Kieth Locke was the only parliamentary politician to defend or support Ali Panah. On the receiving end of this campaign were the Labour Party and Immigration Minister David Cunliffe who has again shown his party to be viciously anti-migrant.
Ali Panah’s release on bail has to be seen only as a partial victory. His supporters will continue to campaign for his residency. In late September his lawyers declared new evidence, adding to previously existing evidence, to show that his life would be endangered if he was returned to Iran.
Soon after Ali Panah’s release it was announced that Ahmed Zaoui had been cleared from being a security threat. Zaoui arrived in New Zealand in December 2002 and sought refugee status. This was denied and he was detained without charge for over two years. The Supreme court authorised his release in 2005 and required the SIS to prove that Zaoui was a security threat. The SIS continued to prevent refugee status for Zaoui by imposing a security risk certificate on him.
Zaoui’s security risk certificate was lifted in September. He had conditions placed on him such as to not promote violence and to provide information about any terrorist activities known to him. These conditions are ludicrous because Zaoui was being cleared, and the conditions were put in place so that the SIS could further smear Zaoui despite not having evidence to show that he is any kind of threat. He expects for his family to be able to join him soon. Zaoui’s freedom would not have been won without the huge struggle carried out by activist groups and his legal team.
The cases of Ahmed Zaoui and Ali Panah raise the questions of racism, racist and class-based immigration policies, the role of the Labour Party on immigration matters, and open borders instead of immigration controls against refugees and workers. The next issue of The Spark will carry several articles that will examine the injustice perpetuated by capitalist immigration laws and will put forward the socialist alternative to these barriers against humanity.
