Last-ditch bid to save man from deportation hell

Reza Yosefi – who has lived in Sheffield for the past four years – is less than 24 hours from being deported to Afghanistan where he has no friends or family.

A last-minute appeal has been made to the European Court of Human Rights but a decision is unlikely to be made before the private chartered flight's departure from Heathrow early tomorrow.

Speaking to the Yorkshire Post from the Harmondsworth detention centre in West London the 20-year-old, who wants to go to university, become an interpreter and study history, said: "I have never been to Afghanistan.

"My opinion about it is that it is a violent place which I don't know.

"You see people here crying and cutting themselves, but I am trying to stay positive. I just want a normal life.

"I have my girlfriend in Sheffield and lots of friends who know me. They are calling me and giving me hope.

"The people in Sheffield are closer than my family."

People are being urged to e-mail Home Secretary Theresa May and Immigration Minister Damian Green today asking for the flight to be stopped to at least hear the result of the application.

Reza was born in Iran and grew up there as the son of illegal Afghani refugees. He says he was not allowed to go to school and when he tried to work he was arrested and badly beaten by police.

He was finally sent to the UK, a long and perilous journey which he managed after seven months.

As a minor he was looked after by social services in Sheffield but after his 18th birthday he was refused indefinite leave to remain, as he had no passport and no evidence to prove that he faced persecution because of his religion or politics if he went "home."

Now aged 20, he is homeless, has no benefits and is not allowed to work.

Independent film-maker Joe Bream, who made a short film about Reza, said: "I think it is terrible because basically they are sending a young guy on his own to a war-torn country where his facial features and his ethnicity makes him a target.

"He has never been there, he has no knowledge of Afghanistan, his formative years were spent in England and we are just sending him over there to fight it out by himself. It is absolutely crazy.

"He is someone who has fallen through the system."

Afghanistan is considered the sixth-worst "failed state" in the world and has been in a state of continuous civil war punctuated by foreign occupations since the 1970s.

Anne Greenwood, a good friend of Reza, said: "Reza belongs to the Hazara ethnic group – the boy servant in the book and film The Kite Runner was a Hazara – and they are considered lowest of the low.

"They form part of a Shia minority group in Afghanistan.

"He can't disguise the fact and this puts him at more risk than most people. He is really quite Westernised which would make him stand out as would the fact he speaks Farsi with an Iranian accent.

"He doesn't know the country and he has no friends or family there. He has really integrated into life in Sheffield. We have all taken him to our hearts because we do think he is a really lovely young man who would be a credit to our country."

Between April and November there have been 39 deportation flights with by far the most – 17 in total – to Afghanistan. Others went to Iraq (seven), Nigeria (six) and Jamaica (three).

To help Reza visit www.sheffieldcdas.org.uk.