Mehran Karimi Nasseri

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Mehran Karimi Nasseri

Mehran Karimi Nasseri (مهران کریمی ناصری [meɦˈrɔːn kʲæriːˈmiː nɔːseˈriː]; born 1942 in Masjed Soleiman, Iran), also known as Sir, Alfred Mehran, is an Iranian refugee who lived in the departure lounge of Terminal One in Charles de Gaulle Airport from 8 August 1988 until July 2006, when he was hospitalized for an unspecified ailment.

1 Early life
2 Protests
3 Wandering through Europe alone
4 The fight for papers
5 Life at the airport
6 Current position
7 Documentaries and fictionalisations
8 See also
9 References
10 External links

[edit] Early life

Nasseri was born in the Anglo-Persian Oil Company settlement located in Masjed Soleiman, Iran. His father was an Iranian physician working for the company. Nasseri stated that his mother was a nurse from Scotland working in the same place.^[1] He arrived in the United Kingdom in September 1973, to take a three-year course in Yugoslav studies at the University of Bradford.

[edit] Protests

While in the United Kingdom, Nasseri was a participant in protests against Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran in March, 1974. He returned to Iran on 7 August 1975, after funding for his university fees had been halted. By his own report, on arrival at Tehran's Mehrabad International Airport, he was taken directly to Evin Prison by the Iranian secret police, S.A.V.A.K., and was later imprisoned and tortured for four months before being expelled from the country. Journalists have been unable to verify these claims, finding only that Nasseri had been among 20 students questioned earlier in 1970 following their protests against a new Tehran University regulation. No incarceration or torture was connected with the incident.

[edit] Wandering through Europe alone

Returning to Europe, he applied for asylum in Berlin, West Germany, and the Netherlands in 1977 but was rejected. Then in 1978, he applied in France but was rejected again; he later lost an appeal. The same thing happened in Yugoslavia. In 1979, he applied in Italy but was unsuccessful. He tried France again in 1980 and lodged an appeal again after it was rejected; the appeal itself was later rejected. His application to emigrate to the United Kingdom was rejected, and he was not allowed to enter the country at Heathrow Airport. Nasseri was expelled from the United Kingdom, so he tried to enter West Germany again, but he was expelled to the Belgian border before Belgium accepted him.

On 7 October 1980, his request for asylum was granted by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Belgium. Nasseri lived in Belgium until 1986, when he decided to move to the United Kingdom. He claimed that he was mugged, and his shoulder bag stolen while waiting at the R.E.R. platform to go to Charles de Gaulle Airport to take a flight to Heathrow. Nasseri managed to board the plane, but when he arrived at Heathrow without the necessary documentation, Heathrow officials sent him back to Charles de Gaulle airport. Nasseri was unable to prove his identity or his refugee status to the French officials and so he was moved to the Zone d'attente (waiting zone), a holding area for travelers without papers.

[edit] The fight for papers

His case was taken up by human rights lawyer Christian Bourget, and in 1992 a French court ruled that Nasseri could not be expelled from France as he had legally entered the country as a refugee. However, the court could not force the French government to give Nasseri refugee status or a transit visa, and so Nasseri continued to remain in limbo within the confines of the airport terminal building.

Bourget now approached the Belgian government in an attempt to get them to reissue Nasseri's original refugee documents. However, the Belgian refugee officials refused to mail them to him in France, stating that Nasseri must instead present himself in so that they could identify him as the same man to whom they had issued the original refugee documents. Under Belgian law, a refugee who voluntarily leaves the country is not allowed to return, and so the Belgian government refused to allow Nasseri to travel back to Belgium to claim his identity. In 1995, the Belgian government partially relented and told Nasseri that he could retrieve his refugee documents if he agreed to live in Belgium under the supervision of a social worker. Nasseri refused, stating that he did not want to live in Belgium but wanted to live in the United Kingdom.

In 1999, the French Government granted Nasseri a temporary residency permit and a refugee's passport, giving him the opportunity to live in France and finally leave the airport. However, Nasseri refused to sign the necessary papers claiming that they did not identify him correctly. His refusal to sign was perhaps an indication of his failing mental health as he had begun to deny that he was Iranian and claimed not to be able to speak Persian. He had also begun to call himself "Sir, Alfred". At some point in the past he had received a letter from the British authorities which had begun "Sir, Alfred..." and since then he has stated that this (including the comma) is his official name.

[edit] Life at the airport

Over the years, Nasseri had become accustomed to his life in the airport terminal. He kept himself clean and rose at 5 A.M. every morning (approximately the time when the airport starts to welcome passengers in for the early flights) to wash in the public toilets. The airport staff sometimes washed his clothes for him and had donated a sofa for his use. He spent most of the day listening to the radio, reading books and writing his diary. This diary has been turned into an autobiography, The Terminal Man (ISBN 0-552-15274-9), in collaboration with British author, Andrew Donkin. The Terminal Man has been published in the U.K., Germany, Poland, Japan, and China. The book was reviewed in The Sunday Times as "a profoundly disturbing and brilliant book."

Unlike Tom Hanks' character in the film The Terminal, and since at least 1994, Nasseri did not live in the duty-free transit area but simply in the departure hall, in the circular "boutiques and restaurants" concourse on the lowest floor. He could have at least theoretically left the terminal at any moment, although, since everyone knew him, his departure would not have gone unnoticed. He did not appear to commonly speak with anyone. With his cart and bags, he almost looked like a traveler, so others either did not notice him or ignored him as if he were a homeless man.

For a time, Nasseri was sitting next to the Relay book and newspaper shop where the English language edition of his book could be bought, and he accepted requests to autograph it.

[edit] Current position

Nasseri's life at the airport ended in July 2006, when he was hospitalized and his sitting place dismantled. End of January 2007 he left the hospital and was looked after by the airport's branch of the French Red Cross; he was lodged for a few weeks in a hotel close to the airport. On Monday March 6, 2007, he transferred to an Emmaus charity reception centre in Paris's twentieth arrondissement.

[edit] Documentaries and fictionalisations

Nasseri's story provided the inspiration for the 1994 Tombés du ciel French film, starring Jean Rochefort, internationally released under the Lost in Transit title. The short story, The Fifteen-Year Layover by Michael Paterniti and published in GQ and The Best American Non-Required Reading, chronicles Nasseri's existence. Alexis Kouros made a documentary about him, Waiting for Godot at De Gaulle in 2000. Glen Luchford made the Here to Where mockumentary in 2001, also featuring Nasseri.

Nasseri was reportedly the inspiration behind the 2004 movie The Terminal; however, neither publicity materials, nor the DVD "special features" nor the film's website mentions Nasseri's plight as an inspiration for the film.

Despite this, reports, including one in The Guardian,^[2] indicate that Spielberg's Dreamworks production company paid $250,000 to Nasseri for rights to his story and report that as of 2004 he carried a poster advertising Spielberg's film draping his suitcase next to his bench. Nasseri was reportedly excited about The Terminal, but it was unlikely that he would ever have a chance to see it. "Yes, my interest in America has gone up because of [the] movie," Nasseri was reported to have said. "That is very good."