«I am a refugee, not an immigrant who comes to work because she suffers from hunger in her country. I came to find a safe place. I left my country because I was risking my life, which is why I asked for political asylum.” As, Maysoon Majidithe Kurdish-Iranian activist arrested on charges of being a smuggler and then released from prison, said in Kurdish while answering questions from the press, before speaking at a meeting organized in the concert hall of the Municipality of Catanzaro. “Those who ask for political asylum – explained Maysoon – have not lived easily in their own country, which is why when they arrive they should be considered with greater respect and not be looked down upon”.
Maysoon also spoke about her experience in prison: “The first thing you think of when you arrive in a democratic country is freedom. When I went on hunger strike in prison it was because I hadn’t had a hearing, I wanted someone to listen to my story. I’ve never met an interpreter. I could talk to my family. I took the trip with my brother and I couldn’t talk to them for two months. I didn’t know anything about anyone. I thought that all 77 people who were traveling with me had been arrested because I didn’t know the reason for the arrest I lost 16 kilos today only 36 kilos and 600 grams of me remain after ten months”. “In Calabria no one is a foreigner”, the title of the initiative in which Maysoon participated, “it is also the aim and struggle of our administration – underlined the president of the municipal council. Gianmichele Bosco -. Calabria in a few years, according to the data that has emerged, risks disappearing and we think it best to block these ‘dangerous criminals’ like Maysoon. They invent terms like smugglers, while real traffickers who remain in other countries and don’t get on boats must be fought and stopped. But our right-wing policies have managed to point the finger at the so-called ‘smugglers’. Also present at the meeting were the councilor for social policies of the Municipality of Catanzaro Nunzio Belcaro, the general secretary Filcam Cgil Calabria Giuseppe Valentino, Emanuele Pinto, of the Free Maysoon committee, Salvatore Falcone, lawyer expert in criminal immigration law and the Maysoon’s lawyer, Giancarlo Liberati.