22 November 2008
Dying for his faith
31 August 2007
By Joe Barratt and Spike Mountjoy: Te Waha Nui Online
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| Ali Reza Panah |
On hunger strike for more than a month, Ali Reza Panah is weak, suffering memory loss, and still no closer to release from his Auckland prison cell.
Panah’s supporters are dispelling claims his conversion to Christianity was just so he could remain in New Zealand.
The Iranian asylum seeker wants to remain here until it is safe to return to Iran – but because his visa has expired the New Zealand Government is trying to deport him.
A convert from Islam to Anglican Christianity, Panah could face harm if he returns to Iran.
This is backed up by Amnesty International, which has called on the New Zealand Government to grant temporary visas to Iranian Christian converts until it is safe for them to return.
Panah is refusing to sign papers that would see him deported. This has resulted in his imprisonment for more than two years.
Hard working
And that is a complete waste of taxpayers’ money, says his exboss, Bruce Keane.
Panah worked for more than a year as a drain layer for Keane until his visa expired and he was remanded at Mt Eden Prison.
“He was hard working, honest and learned quickly,” says Keane. “Panah often worked a 70-hour week and had saved up to buy a unit to live in.
“He had a lot to offer New Zealand.”
Panah has been on hunger strike for more than a month to “prove he’s a genuine Christian because the Government doesn’t believe him”, says Panah’s support person from the Hope and Peace Foundation, Homeira Fatthi.
“He said it was a huge dishonour and disrespect denying he was a Christian.
“He feels this is a last resort to prove his belief,” says Fatthi.
She says the last time she saw Panah he had been in the medical unit at Mt Eden Prison.
He was in a wheelchair, had lost weight, had dark rings around his eyes and his hands were cold.
“He is getting forgetful. He was repeating himself,” says Fatthi.
Accusations
Despite becoming a Christian before arriving in New Zealand, Panah has come under fire from the New Zealand First deputy leader Peter Brown, who has questioned the authenticity of the conversion.
“A disturbing similarity in each of the cases of the failed Iranian asylum seekers is an apparent attempt to rort the system after all appeals have failed by converting to Christianity, then claiming that they could not be deported due to safety concerns resulting from their ‘conversion’ if returned home,” says Brown in a media statement.
“Ali Panah, the current cause célèbre of the human rights brigade, is a case in point.
Through his refusal to admit he has no valid claim to remain here, Mr Panah has brought his current situation on himself.”
His statement is at odds with Keane’s experience of Panah.
Keane says Panah used to bring a bible to work and quoted from it regulary.
“He was always preaching to us,” says Keane.
“It’s a pretty rough sort of work-place, so we used to give him a bit of flak about it, but he would always take it with a grin.
“There is no doubt it is for real. He even tries to get me to pray with him when I go visit him in prison.”
Keane cannot understand why Brown would claim the conversion was a “rort”.
“Why didn’t they ask us? The people that know him.”
Panah’s local parish is also supporting him, with Rev Clive Sperring, stating: “I have no doubt whatsoever that his faith is genuine.”
