Everything about Mehran Karimi Nasseri totally explained
Mehran Karimi Nasseri (مهران کریمی ناصری [meɦˈrɔːnkʲæriːˈmiː nɔːseˈriː]; born
1942 in
Masjed Soleiman,
Iran), also known as
Sir, Alfred Mehran, is an
Iranian
refugee who lived in the departure lounge of Terminal One in
Charles de Gaulle Airport from
8 August 1988 until July 2006, when he was hospitalized for an unspecified ailment.
Early life
Nasseri was born in the
Anglo-Persian Oil Company settlement located in
Masjed Soleiman, Iran. His father was an Iranian physician working for the company. Nasseri stated that his mother was a nurse from
Scotland working in the same place. He arrived in the
United Kingdom in September 1973, to take a three-year course in
Yugoslav studies at the
University of Bradford.
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 funding for his university fees had been halted. By his own report, on arrival at
Tehran's
Mehrabad International Airport, he was taken directly to
Evin Prison by the Iranian
secret police,
S.A.V.A.K., 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.
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 wasn't 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 Commissioner 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 R.E.R. 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 travelers without papers.
The fight for papers
His case was taken up by
human rights lawyer
Christian Bourget, and in 1992 a French court ruled that Nasseri couldn't be expelled from France as he'd 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 reissue 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 so that they could identify him as the same man to whom they'd issued the original refugee documents. Under Belgian law, a refugee who voluntarily leaves the country isn't 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 didn't identify him correctly. His refusal to sign was perhaps an indication of his failing mental health as he'd 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". At some point in the past he'd received a letter from the British authorities which had begun "Sir, Alfred..." and since then he's stated that this (including the comma) is his official name.
Life at the airport
Over the years, Nasseri had become accustomed to his life in the airport terminal. He kept himself clean and rose 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 washed his clothes for him and had donated a
sofa for his use. He spent 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 0-552-15274-9), in collaboration with British author, Andrew Donkin.
The Terminal Man has been published in the U.K., Germany, Poland, Japan, and China. The book was reviewed in
The Sunday Times as "a profoundly disturbing and brilliant book."
Unlike
Tom Hanks' character in the film
The Terminal, and since at least 1994, Nasseri didn't live in the
duty-free transit area but simply in the departure hall, in the circular "boutiques and restaurants" concourse on the lowest floor. He could have at least theoretically left the terminal at any moment, although, since everyone knew him, his departure wouldn't have gone unnoticed. He didn't appear to commonly speak with any one. With his cart and bags, he almost looked like a traveler, so others either didn't notice him or ignored him as if he were a homeless man.
For a time, Nasseri was sitting next to the
Relay
book and newspaper shop where the English language edition of his book could be bought, and accepted to autograph it.
Current position
Nasseri's life at the airport ended in July 2006, when he was hospitalized and his sitting place dismantled. End of January 2007 he left the hospital and was looked after by the airport's branch of the French
Red Cross; he was lodged for a few weeks in a hotel close to the airport. On Monday
March 6,
2007, he transferred to an
Emmaus charity reception centre in
Paris's twentieth
arrondissement.
Documentaries and fictionalisations
Nasseri's story provided the inspiration for the 1994
Tombés du ciel French film, starring
Jean Rochefort, internationally released under the
Lost in Transit title. 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.
Alexis Kouros made a documentary about him,
Waiting for Godot at De Gaulle in 2000.
Glen Luchford made the
Here to Where mockumentary in 2001, also featuring Nasseri.
Nasseri was reportedly the inspiration behind the 2004
movie The Terminal; however, neither publicity materials, nor the
DVD "special features" nor the film's website mentions Nasseri's plight as an inspiration for the film.
Despite this, reports, including one in
The Guardian, 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 draping his
suitcase next to his bench. Nasseri was reportedly excited about
The Terminal, but it was unlikely that he'd ever have a chance to see it. "Yes, my interest in America has gone up because of [the] movie," Nasseri was reported to have said. "That is very good."
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