Greece: Iranian refugees fight for asylum in EU

Sahar Kamrani describes herself as a troublemaker. And it wasn't hard to cause trouble growing up in Iran.

"You're in a box," she said. "You can be in trouble at any moment. Anytime you might not come home. But there's such excitement in breaking laws. Everyday in Iran I would wear makeup. Here, in Greece, I never wear makeup." She sighed, as if disappointed.

Kamrani helps acclimate other Iranian refugees to life in Greece, often clashing but sometimes cooperating with officials.

Kamrani would know what it takes to adjust. When she was 19 and still living in Tehran, Iran, just eight years ago, the wind blew back her headscarf, revealing her hair, and the police stopped her on the street. They searched her bag and found a fake Christian ID she had used to slip into a friend's wedding and a book her friend had given her - a book criticising Islam that carried with it a death sentence. She was arrested on the spot and thrown in jail.

Her father bribed the guard outside her cell with a year's salary. The guard stood aside and they fled. They went to the Greek embassy, where Kamrani knew the man who administered visas. He rooted through his files and pulled out an old invitation letter from years before - addressed to Kamrani's mother from her sister-in-law, who lived in Greece - and copied it, refiled it and gave Kamrani a visa.

Her father said it was too dangerous to go alone, so the entire family went, expecting to stay in Greece for one or two months. Kamrani's uncle in Glyfada took them in, and they gave him all the money they took with them - 9,000 euros - for safekeeping.

Two months later, when Kamrani called back home to Iran, her friend told her that the authorities had seized their house and her father's propane cylinder factory. "Everything is gone. Don't come back," she told Fard.

The next day Kamrani and her family joined a crowd of refugees pushing and pressing into a downtown police office, seeking political asylum in Greece. After six months they finally got an appointment, only to be told they had to go to a different police station in Glyfada. After an interview they were given a pink card, signifying that they were in the process of applying for asylum, a notoriously difficult process in Greece (see article opposite page).

When Kamrani's uncle learned that they were staying, he threw them out. When they asked him for their money, he said, "What money?" They spent that night in a park in Glyfada.

"I couldn't see my mum and dad like that," Kamrani said, remembering those days. "I was 19, I could start a new life. They couldn't. My father tried to be happy for me, but he couldn't."

Kamrani tried to kill herself. On her second attempt, a friend called and stayed her hand just before she cut.

New beginning

Kamrani started visiting the Evangelical church across from Hadrian's Arch, and the preacher gave her a key to a flat in Glyfada owned by the church. The flat was unfurnished, but it enabled Kamrani and her family to gradually put a life together. Her father got a job at a bakery. They repainted the apartment. People from the church donated furniture.

Kamrani wrote letters to everyone she knew asking for aid. One of her letters made it to a man in the Netherlands named Arno Lankhaar, who sent her 4,000 euros and told her, "Let me know when it's finished, and I'll send more."

They started emailing each other. He came to Athens. They met on the day of a transit strike, and they walked together from Omonoia to Glyfada through the empty streets. They were married on 27 March 2004.

Kamrani and Lankhaar tried to move to Holland, but the Dutch authorities rejected her, saying that her case rested wi