The Spanish journalist Meritxell Martorell travelled to Lesbos to tell a story: of the thousands of refugees who arrive each day to this Greek island, as a first step and then joined to the rest of Europe. But she came back with something more: a love. “I fell in love with a refugee and ended up in prison”, is called the text that Martorell wrote for the site Vice, telling you the relationship that the joined Harud, an iranian of 30 years, journalist and also an activist, who fled his country for fear of being executed.
Martorell and Harud was crossed for the first time at a service station, when he was part of a demonstration against Macedonia, for having closed its border, and offered to hold his camera to get a better plane. the “He is high-on par with exotic and attractive. Is interested in my story, surprised that a journalist is sleeping in the same bus as that of the refugees, had not seen any prior journalism program experiential. Do not stop to question me. I am accelerated and I count it all with enthusiasm. I tell him about my work, my travels, my family.”
He also told his party. For the past two years did not see his family, he was alone. After leaving Iran, he took refuge in Iraq and then spent time in Turkey. “even Though the weariness and the constant struggle for survival, as it has been punished in the past few months, I still find it more attractive now. Has 30 years, but his gaze appears to be greater“, he says.
The crush is mutual and immediate. “The cold is now converted into an ideal temperature, the gas station is the scene of a romantic novel and I lose completely the notion of space and time. All are alienated, I don’t know where we are.”
After spending some days together, in which they share “a cup of coffee with milk, a bun and a conversation”, the crammed bus in which he travels Martorell with a group of refugees, to give permission to pass to the Greek city of Idomeni, the border with Macedonia. You try to say goodbye to Harud, but fails. the Is the first of a series of misunderstandings and events that mark the history between the two.
In Idomeni went back to look and returned to say goodbye. The journalist traveled, heading to Athens to finish his video about the refugees and he was waiting for an opportunity. A few days later, she learned that he had been destined to Hannover, Germany. Not what he thought. Bought a plane ticket and traveled up there.
“Stay with Harud in the train station and when I see him throw me to his arms with a leap, he is healthy and safe. We walk through the cold German city and we live our story intensely. We are innocent and we embrace that magical moment to not let it go ever. Although it denies it outright, I bought her some clothes, we dined at a restaurant Persian and spend a night in a hotel that I book. The next morning we go to the refugee camp where I expect Sabber and Hussein. I buy chocolate biscuits for the girls and spend an afternoon with the yezidis”.
Wrapped up in the fervor of the moment, decide that this time will not be separated. is a decision that Is not thought about, taken in haste in an airport. And it’s a decision that Harud will cost him his freedom. Martorell explains this in detail in the note to Vice. “He accompanies Me to the airport and we are unable to accept that moment, unable to believe that he is going to live in a refugee camp and I to shoot a piece of appointments. is Not I want to flirt, I want to be with Harud, and he wants to be with me. How can we do it? The Schengen agreement (free movement of persons in Eurropa) is not valid in this case, not yet. Harud must wait a minimum of six months after receiving asylum to be able to come to Spain. What six months? Not at all,” he says.
“we think the idea more crazy than you can imagine. I open my app BlaBlaCar, and I see that there is a car that comes out tomorrow from Hannover to Barcelona. Without any doubt, this is the destination. Goodbye to the plane. We arrive to my city, drugged-out of illusion and ignorance, reckless, and foolish as ever. I call my family. More than a month ago that do not know me, I have been recording the story in Greece and I have spliced with Germany. I confess to you that your daughter, in love with, just crossing the border with a refugee without papers. My mother is coming to see me worried, I present to Harud as if his son-in-law in question and is part of the heart, sees that I’m affected. I have spent many days without rest, I’m unbalanced as ever“.
Martorell try a legal path for his lover to remain in Spain, but the country does not give political asylum to iranians and fewer still if they had previously been assigned to another european country. The two are in breach of the regulations. “we Spent two days at home, hiding in our shelter, and with the understanding that the situation has gotten out of hand. Not only for violating the rules, but because we didn’t even know it. We shared a couple of coffees at a gas station and two days in Germany. We are not lovers, only that we have redefined the color pink, the dark moments that our minds were unable to accept”.
As with the cooler head, you decide that Harud return to Germany, which proceed in a legal way and wait the time pass. But when you try to cross the border, it is stopped and they get a erefugl cell. For 21 days don’t know anything about each other. The reporter eats away at the guilt, he punishes them for their inexperience and for their impulsiveness. Just finished your story when you finally receive a call from Harud. Are once more, one last time, in Ceret, French town at the foot of the Pyrenees. “You have good news, the French authorities have decided to study your case and give you asylum.
in The end, he says, there is no bad that good does not come. If we hadn’t known, I never would have finished in France. You like this country, speaks some French and we will be all more simple.Today Harud is living in Lyon, has managed to work for Amnesty International and is fulfilling his dream of working in Europe as a representative of Human Rights. He talks to his family almost daily, check them less, a lot, but is satisfied with his job”.
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