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Merhan Karimi Nasseri
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The Terminal Man, a book written by Mehran and Andrew Donkin
Mehran Karimi Nasseri (مهران کریمی ناصری [meɦˈrɔːn kʲæriːˈmiː nɔːseˈriː]; (born 1942 in Masjed Soleiman, Iran), also known as Sir, Alfred Mehran (sic), is an Iranian refugee who has been living in the departure lounge of Terminal One in Charles de Gaulle Airport since 8 August 1988.
Contents
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- <LI class=toclevel-1>1 Introduction <LI class=toclevel-1>2 Protests <LI class=toclevel-1>3 Wandering through Europe alone <LI class=toclevel-1>4 The fight for papers <LI class=toclevel-1>5 Fictionalisations of Nasseri <LI class=toclevel-1>6 Current position <LI class=toclevel-1>7 Visiting
- 8 External links
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Introduction
Nasseri was born in the Anglo-Persian Oil Company settlement located in Masjed Soleiman, Iran. His father was an Iranian doctor working for the company; while he claims his mother was an English nurse working in the same place, the Paul Berczeller article cited below says his family disputes this. He arrived in the United Kingdom in September 1973, to take a three-year course in Yugoslav studies at Bradford University.
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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 money for university fees had unexpectedly been halted. By his own report, on arrival at Tehran's airport, he was taken directly to Evin Prison by the Iranian secret police, SAVAK, 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.
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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 Commission 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 RER 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 travellers without papers.
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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 couldn't 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 re-issue 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 person 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 didn't 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" (sic). 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.
Over the years, Nasseri has become accustomed to his life in the airport terminal. He keeps himself clean and rises 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 wash his clothes for him and have donated a sofa for his use. He spends 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 0552152749), in collaboration with British author, Andrew Donkin. The Terminal Man has been published in the UK, Germany, Poland, Japan, and (in March 2006) in China. The book was reviewed in the London Sunday Times as "a profoundly disturbing and brilliant book."
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Fictionalisations of Nasseri
His story provided the inspiration for a French language film in 1993 starring Jean Rochefort and called Lost in Transit [1] (released under the title Tombés du ciel in France and Lost in Transit for international audiences). 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.
Nasseri was reportedly the inspiration behind the 2004 movie The Terminal, however, no publicity materials, the DVD "special features" or the film's website ever mention Nasseri's plight as an inspiration for the film. In fact, the DVD implies that the story was so "incredible" that it leaves the viewer with the impression that the story was solely a result of the screenwriter's imagination.
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 which hangs from 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 movie," Nasseri was reported to have said. "That is very good."
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Current position
Unlike Tom Hanks' character in the movie, and since at least 1994, Nasseri does not live in the duty-free transit area but simply in the departure hall, in the circular boutiques and restaurants passage on the lowest floor. He can at least theoretically leave the terminal at any moment, although, since everyone knows him, his departure might not remain unnoticed. He does not seem to speak with anyone normally. With his cart and bags, he almost looks like a traveler, so people either do not notice him or ignore him as if he were a homeless person (there are a few of them at the airport).
The publicity surrounding the movie did not change Nasseri's position. As of 31st December, 2005, he was still there, surrounded by a huge amount of boxes (in rather bad shape), next to the Relay shop where his book could be bought some time ago. He lacks a front tooth.
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Visiting
Locating Alfred (as he is generally called by the personnel) takes under a minute for travellers departing from Terminal 1. Sitting behind a large glass window next to the internal yard of the terminal, Alfred can be seen by every departing traveller moving up from the check-in floor to the transit floor, during the external escalator travel. With a little more effort, he is even visible to returning travellers moving from the transit floor to the even higher luggage-claim floor.
It's possible to reach Terminal 1 from the other ones by the means of eg. the free bus shuttle, line 1. However, at least 20 minutes should be dedicated for the travel, since the shuttle travels a circular route and the return to Terminal 2B can take significantly more time than the travel to Terminal 1.
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External links
- Article on snopes.com
- "Has a guy been stuck in the Paris airport since 1988 for lack of the right papers?" - The Straight Dope, 20 August, 1999
- Article by Paul Berczeller about Nasseri and the film in the UK The Guardian.
Categories: Cleanup from July 2006 | Articles lacking sources | 1945 births | Living people | Iranian people | Refugees
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merhan_Karimi_Nasseri
