After three years living in a Vancouver church, Amir Kazemian is free to stay in Canada, as his application has been approved by Citizenship and Immigration Canada on humanitarian and compassionate grounds. The welcome news reached Mr. Kazemian in the nick of time, as he was in police custody awaiting deportation.
Amir Kazemian originally arrived in Canada in 1998, fleeing persecution in Iran for his family’s political beliefs. Mr. Kazemian’s father was a political activist who formed a party opposed to Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979, at the time of the Iranian Revolution. Several members of the family were arrested, including Amir who was jailed for 16 months at age 18, and suffered beatings several later instances, including one leading to a serious brain injury.
Yet while Mr. Kazemian’s mother was accepted by Canada as a political refugee, his claim was rejected. While his case appears to meet the requirements for refugee status, Mr. Kazemian’s current lawyer noted that the failure of the first claim was due to a lack of evidence of torture shown on his behalf and erratic behaviour by Amir, which can be attributed to the injury and psychological trauma suffered in his homeland.
Fearing further torture and injury if he was returned to Iran, Mr. Kazemian sought sanctuary in St. Michael’s Anglican Church in Vancouver, where he stayed for 3 years. While at the church, he worked repairing and rebuilding computers. Recently however, Amir phoned the police after a dispute with an abusive customer who gave him a fraudulent money order. The officer noted the outstanding deportation order for Mr. Kazemian and brought him into custody.
In January however Mr. Kazemian’s lawyer had filed a new application for Amir to stay in Canada on humanitarian and compassionate grounds. This time around, they had obtained evidence that showed proof of the torture, including medical records. Thanks to this new evidence, Mr. Kazemian’s applicaion was allowed, in a decision that was faxed to the Canadian Border Services Agency to the cheers of over 100 supporters.