Dear sir,
Thank you for your letter drawing my attention to the circumstances of Mr. Stéphan Pélissier whose verdict for his appeal hearing in Greece has been set for March 1, 2019.
I am very familiar with our fellow countryman’s circumstances, and with the services of the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, in both Paris and Athens.
Even though Mr. Pélissier is in France, attendance at the legal proceedings concerning him can indeed be assured in collaboration with the lawyer defending his interests.
Our official is in regular contact with the French Embassy in Athens, who will send a representative to attend the appeal trial.
I have also informed my Greek counterpart of the feelings aroused in France by Mr. Pélissier’s situation, which we are still following with considerable vigilance.
Yours sincerely,
Nathalie LOISEAU
Mr. José BOVÉ
Member of the European Parliament
Montredon
[text redacted]
MAILING ADDRESS: 37 Quai d’Orsay 75700
Paris 07 SP—SWITCHBOARD: 01 43 17 53 53
WEB ADDRESS: www.diplomatie.gouv.fr.
As a way of further expanding my file (the more political content it has the better it will look to the Greek legal system), I’ve written to Nathalie Loiseau again to say that I’ve duly noted her support and the attendance of the consulate whatever the circumstances, even if the trial is postponed. I’m hoping for a reply from her.
* * *
—
I sometimes look back—with amusement—at the life I once lived, the certainties I had, the life I led before…Before I met Zena and got to know her family. Before I was aware of the harrowing circumstances that drive whole families to climb into already punctured boats and attempt crossings that they believe are not as dangerous as living in their home country. Before I learned, from my in-laws’ experiences, how these desperate people who’ve already lost everything are treated in France. Ten years ago I had a number of prejudices about undocumented immigrants, about foreigners and their reasons for coming to France, and I sometimes thought that disadvantaged people didn’t always put in enough effort to dig themselves out of their situations. I now know that leaving your homeland is a tragic decision, I understand the terrible difficulties encountered along the way, the life-threatening risks that these people run at every moment, the horrors of coming up against incomprehensible laws in rich countries that seem so capable of taking you in, but just don’t. People tell me this, and I know it’s true: I’ve really changed, and the way I see things has changed. And this is just as obvious in my private life as it is in my work, where I now favor the human element in every situation.
* * *
—
Doing everything I can to maintain a strong media profile. Alerting the authorities and securing every possible form of support. Getting people to rally around us. That’s what my life has become, that’s what our lives have become for many months now. Zena and I are not in the least heroic or extraordinary. We’re ordinary people who’ve ended up in a form of torment that’s way beyond us, but we won’t let it get the better of us. There are periods of euphoria when I feel the stars have aligned in our favor, and times of deep despondency when I think the appeal will only add to my sentence. And then in those dark hours there’s always something, and sometimes it’s almost insignificant, that allows me to pull myself together and find the energy to continue fighting to have my innocence recognized in the eyes of the law. It might be the communal strength of all the activists battling to ensure that refugees in France are treated humanely; or the strangers, the people who send us simple anonymous messages of support on social media, or stop us in the street or at the supermarket checkout to tell us they’re with us; our friends who surround us with their unfailing affection; and our family, of course. On our wedding day, Zena and I started building this family with my parents, my sister, her parents, sisters, and brother. And our two young daughters are its crowning glory. Of course, this whole saga has created tensions, some of them unbearable, but we’ve held out, we’ve stood up to them, and I’m enormously grateful for the feeling of family solidarity around us. Because that’s exactly what I felt when I set off for Greece to stop Saif, Wafaa, Mimo, Anas, and Samer from going to their certain deaths. As I finish this book, I don’t know what the Greek court will decide at my appeal. But whatever happens, a whole family will be united in confronting its decision. And, as they say, Inshallah!
Afterword
It is Friday, March 1, 2019. I’m with my wife, Zena, at Orly Airport, Paris. It’s around midday.
We’re waiting to board a flight to Toulouse to meet up with my parents and, more importantly, our two little girls, Julia and Mila.
We’ve just had an intense week of press interviews and television appearances for the publication of our book. It was meant to be published sooner, in the hope of generating a lot of media interest. In the end, it came out yesterday. Still, we did manage to send a copy to our Greek lawyers so they could add it to the file.
After the shock of finding myself sentenced, in November 2017, to seven years in prison with no possibility of parole, and the continuing long legal nightmare, this book felt like a self-evident necessity. We needed to free ourselves from the emotional weight accumulated over the years of this ordeal by laying it to rest on paper.
We feel it is a genuine firsthand account of present-day French society, and one with particular resonance in the context of our contemporary world, because it addresses questions such as exile, the experiences of refugees, the criminalization of solidarity, the inability of European leaders to tackle the biggest migration crisis since World War II, and the need to reform the UN’s operational regulations.
We also needed to record what had happened. To describe how in Europe, in our time, you can be treated as a criminal, like someone who has stolen or killed, when you have only tried to save people; and in my case, my family, who were fleeing a dictatorship and ISIS.
During the initial trial in 2017, the criminal courts in Patras sentenced me to seven years of prison without parole for the mass transportation of undocumented immigrants in Greece in 2015. To put it plainly, I was seen as just another people smuggler, even though the immigrants concerned were members of my family.
In France, anyone who has directly or indirectly facilitated or attempted to facilitate a foreigner’s illegal entry into, travel within, or residency in the country is punishable by law.
But that same law does not apply when there is a family connection between the perpetrator and the illegal immigrant.
Theoretically, then, I was not risking legal proceedings in France. But what about Greece? Even though Greece is a member of the European Union, and the union’s member states are meant to standardize their laws, I had no idea what would happen to me if we were stopped. And that doubt was my constant companion over a journey of more than 2,500 kilometers. The day before I left, I’d searched in vain for the applicable Greek measures in such a situation, to see whether the regulations were the same as in France. But the legal information was all in Greek and online translations were completely incomprehensible. I therefore decided to travel to Greece and bring back my in-laws without being sure what risks I was running. At worst, I thought I would be fined, but would never have envisioned being arrested, held in custody in conditions worthy of the Soviet Union, and—worse still—given a seven-year prison sentence.
This punishment was wholly out of proportion to the deed. In France, you might be imprisoned for several years for a “crime of passion” murder. The sentences for rape are lower than the one handed down to me; sometimes there is even a reprieve for sex attacks. So seven years with no parole when I hadn’t stolen, raped, or killed was, in both personal and legal terms, an aberration and a scandal.
But make no mistake, t
his book is also and primarily a love story. It is a testimony to the strength that love can bring to bear in your actions by giving you the courage to surpass yourself and do things you would never have achieved without it—in short, to sacrifice yourself, in a manner of speaking.
* * *
—
When I met Zena I immediately embraced Syrian culture, which was so close to the Greek culture I inherited from my grandmother. Zena often made culinary specialties for me, and within a few months, I gained ten pounds. I started to learn a few words of Syrian so that I could communicate with her family. We used to listen to the Lebanese singer Fairuz, and Zena gave me nostalgic descriptions of Damascus, the oldest city in the world.
But ever since that first meeting, I was also thrown headlong into the Syrian civil war. The peaceful revolution for freedom began in the very early days of our idyll. I started following some Syrian activists on social networks. There were harrowing eyewitness accounts and documentaries, tortured civilians, children who were skeletal or had had limbs amputated.
For those Syrians, as it was for my father-in-law, leaving their country was the hardest decision to make. It really was heartbreaking. But new dangers, threats to their families and the advances made by ISIS, often left them with no choice. What would we have done in their situation? Most likely the same as my parents-in-law, the same thing that millions of people have done through the ages in order to escape abject poverty or war.
France has a long tradition of taking in immigrants, whether they are fleeing hunger, war, or dictatorships. Every French person can count among his or her friends or relations a grandparent from Spain, Italy, Portugal, Poland, or Africa.
Our identity is built on this multicultural heritage and, in spite of this, nothing has really changed: Immigrants are never made welcome. Particularly in times of economic crisis, when they are always used as scapegoats. They are rejected, discriminated against, imprisoned, and—in the worst instances—subjected to violence, or even openly killed, as happened recently on the Greek–Turkish border.
Tens of thousands of refugees, including many children, are crammed into camps in Hungary, Greece, Lebanon, and Turkey. They live with danger, are vulnerable to viruses, and develop poor mental health. And that’s when they’re not being bombarded on the Turkish–Syrian border by the army of Bashar al-Assad’s regime and its Russian allies, watched silently by Western leaders.
Since 2019 far-right populist parties have achieved the highest rankings in the European elections in France.
Zena’s brother, Anas, who is following a higher education course in information technology, desperately wishes people would change the way they think of refugees. He often talks about Steve Jobs, who also has Syrian roots—“He’s my role model,” Anas tells me.
* * *
—
From the moment we woke up this morning, March 1, 2019, a few hours before the verdict is due, Zena and I have been in a state of anxiety. Today is of paramount importance to us and our family. Because on this day my second trial before the Patras criminal court opens near Athens in Greece. One thing I know already is that, whatever the verdict, it will definitely be implemented, because any appeal would not be suspensive: So it will be prison or freedom.
But what exactly is my crime? I didn’t steal. I didn’t rape. I didn’t kill.
On the eve of my first trial in 2017, I put this question on my Twitter feed. It was the only question that needed to be asked: “Should we impose legal sanctions on actions that are not morally reprehensible?”
As we sit side by side in the airport departure lounge, there’s a palpable tension. Zena gets up to buy some macaroons. There’s a shop right in front of us. We’ll have them later with the girls.
I leaf absentmindedly through a magazine, perhaps hoping to find something else to think about. But my thoughts are elsewhere. I’m going back over the key events since that day in August 2015 when my life was about to change. People aren’t usually aware of that moment, of that schism after which things will never be the same.
We’ve waited more than eighteen months for this trial. Life, routine, and everyday concerns have regained the upper hand. Even though somewhere in the backs of our minds, the threat of a second prison sentence has always lurked.
We forget about it most of the time. But it’s when we catch ourselves daydreaming, daring to hope…that’s when the threat rears its head. It was there all along, hidden, skulking in a shady corner of our subconscious. Waiting for the right moment when our guard was down.
Until the end of 2018, I was a legal officer at a large French company. Confronted with the prospect of another trial in 2019, I lost my appetite for most things. I couldn’t find much meaning in my work, or my life. All my thoughts and energies were focused on that deadline.
2019 was one of the most important years of our lives. I left my job with absolutely no prospects of employment, we published this book, and the long-awaited appeal hearing took place on March 1.
* * *
—
It’s midday. My cell vibrates. I have some WhatsApp messages. It’s my lawyer. I can’t believe my eyes. He tells me we’ve won. My 2017 sentence to seven years’ imprisonment has quite simply been overturned, quashed. I’m released. My lawyer will later admit that the appeal court’s reasoning did not take into account international tracts on the rights of refugees, but that we won on a point of procedure. Greece would not want an overly favorable decision to send a positive signal to refugees’ families—who might be tempted to come and collect their immigrating relatives on Greek soil—because in 2015 there were 2,000 to 3,000 refugees a day flooding into the Greek isles. But the technicalities don’t matter—we’ve won! My sentence has been quashed. I’m released.
Zena and I hug. She’s crying, she can’t breathe. We kiss again and again. Surrounded by people laughing at us!
It’s over, the nightmare is at an end. We never really dared to believe it would be. Having been burned so badly at the first trial. We call our parents. There’s a feeling of unbounded euphoria. And of a weight suddenly being lifted.
I feel as if I’m waking from a very long nightmare. And for the first time in a long while I feel free, unfettered. The oppression has gone. A completely new sensation.
We must savor this moment, record these emotions, remember these images, so that we can keep replaying them and enjoy them again and again in the future.
I will make my final television appearance this evening. I’ve been invited onto the daily regional news show France 3 Occitanie. I’ve kept this news exclusively for them and a handful of print journalists who have become friends because, right from the very beginning, like thousands of people all over France, they believed in us.
But we’re already in a hurry to turn this page, to get back to normal life, to a serene, regular existence, with our loved ones and our friends.
* * *
—
And now, more than a year later, on April 23, 2020, all that is behind us.
Zena and I have been profoundly changed by this whole experience.
We have sold our house and left the south of France to move north. We needed a change of scenery.
Zena has become a translator and interpreter at the law courts in Lille, near Paris. I have moved into trade unionism, working as a legal manager, perhaps to throw myself into different battles.
The crime of solidarity has now been mitigated in France, and luckily there are no longer legal proceedings against “any natural or legal person, when the offending act did not give rise to any direct or indirect compensation and consisted of providing legal, linguistic, or social advice or support, or any other aid offered with exclusively humanitarian intentions.”
But what is the situation in Greece? And the rest of Europe?
Sometimes I wake in the middle of the night in a sweat. Images and emotions from my arrest
resurface. I occasionally have panic attacks, I feel as if I can’t breathe. Then I remember it’s all over, it all ended well. And I can go back to sleep.
I also think back to that evening near Athens in 2015, when I shared a hotel bedroom with Zena’s brother, Anas, and her cousin Samer. We came up with a jokey nickname for ourselves that evening, it was our way of recording the absurdity of the situation, our little note of sarcasm and irony: We called ourselves the “good criminals.”
Acknowledgments
Zena and I would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to everyone who has given us support in any way, be they family, friends, loved ones, neighbors, acquaintances, strangers…It’s thanks to you that we had the strength to keep going despite the obstacles, never giving up hope. Your acts of kindness, both great and small, comforted and strengthened us in our fight, and warmed our hearts when the road ahead looked dark. To all of you, and there are so many of you: Thank you!
Thank you also to Éditions Michel Lafon and especially Margaux Mersié, Maïte Ferracci-Buffiere, and Cécile-Agnès Champart for their unfailing faith in us and for their support.
Appendices
The Dublin III Regulation
When my parents-in-law ran the risk of being deported to Hungary, it was because they had been “dublinned,” and this is an explanation of exactly what that means.
The Dublin III Regulation is in fact the nickname given to ruling number 604-2013 that was made by the European Parliament and the European Council on June 26, 2013. The text of this ruling, which was signed by the member states of the European Union along with Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, and Liechtenstein, delegates responsibility for examining refugees’ requests for asylum to the first country in which they arrive. In other words, it isn’t refugees themselves who choose where they want to ask for asylum, but the vagaries of their journey and their specific point of entry into Europe that decide for them. So migrants who reach Europe via Italy and are registered in that country—either willingly or by force—would not be able to ask for asylum in France even if that is their wish and even if they succeed in reaching France. Thanks to fingerprint files that are shared on the Eurodac computer network among all the signatories to the regulation, when refugees’ applications are registered at a French prefecture, they would automatically be subject to the “Dublin procedure” and risk being sent back to their country of entry, in this example Italy, which has the sovereign right to handle their request for asylum. One third of the 120,000 requests for asylum made in France in 2017 were subject to the Dublin procedure, and more than 4,000 people were deported to their country of entry. There are, however, possible exceptions and dispensations: reuniting families takes precedence over the ruling, and asylum seekers can submit pleas if they feel they’re at risk of being mistreated in their country of entry—these were among the arguments that we used to defend my parents-in-law, very legitimately in view of the horrors that they suffered in Hungary, which was their point of entry.
I Just Wanted to Save My Family Page 15