In a message published on his official Telegram channel, Iranian Ambassador to Britain, Hamid Baeidinejad, recalled the murder of an Iranian national residing in the UK who was killing in 2013 for racist reasons and described his family’s consistent pursuit of justice as effective and emphasized the need to combat racist behaviors.
What follows is the full text of Baeidinejad’s post on Telegram:
“The tragic story unfolded few years earlier. Bijan Ebrahimi, a young Iranian who had immigrated to Britain in 2001 in the hope of a better life, eventually settled in a small town south of Bristol which mainly plays host to white Europeans. Despite life difficulties and while suffering from a certain physical disability, he remained a calm and harmless person. Yet, he faced with a racist and sickly neighbor who seemed to enjoy bothering him. On several occasions and without Bijan having caused any trouble, the neighbor would join a friend in attacking him in various ways.
Nevertheless, Bijan would patiently endure these insults and threats every time, and during the space from 2005 to 2013, upon being threatened to death and beating, he referred to police, as his only refuge, for 44 times and later shared the issue with the city hoping they would prevent the neighbor’s attacks, but every time not only was he ignored, but even he was accused and arrested many times for being lonely and isolated and creating a sense of danger among the people of the community.
Unfortunately, Bijan’s cries did not reach anywhere, and his insidious neighbor, on a bitter day in 2013, attacked him, dragging him to the front of the lawn of his house and, after harsh beatings, burned him and killed him. The incident came as an intense shock to the society.
The court condemned the victim’s neighbor and sentenced him to life imprisonment, but the verdict could not relieve pains of Bijan’s two sisters who were aware of his pains and sufferings. They demanded the court to deal with police’s negligence, which had contributed to the crime, and therefore began a massive attempt through an independent complaint system against the police. Although the process proved time-consuming due to significance of the issue, finally in May 2016, the police approved of the complaint to the local police and jailed two senior police officers for not carrying out their professional duties while dismissing two other officers from their jobs.
Yet, deep pains of Bijan’s sisters did not calm down and they demanded that the police be condemned to applying ‘inhuman racism’, that is, the police refused to treat perpetrators appropriately due to racial prejudices resulting from difference in skin color, ethnicity and culture, which has helped to bring about crime.
After continuing the judicial process, today, after a year and a half, the mayor of Bristol has officially announced that “it is unfortunate to announce that the racist behavior of the police in favoring the criminal who murdered Bijan because of cultural discrimination is a true story and that the city council hereby announces its deep apology on the bitter incident. By making necessary changes in the police structure, we will try to prevent repetition of a similar event against other people, nationalities, and immigrants.”
HA/4176413