I'm supposed to be -- I'm supposed to be read
a letter but I want to share a short story
with you of what -- how I happen to be here.
I -- it's a story of a dinner table in my
hometown, Damascus, where I grew up.
It's a dinner table where my mom and dad,
my banker brother, my sister, my two other
sisters, we used to sit around and have dinner
and listen to music every day.
It's a dinner table that I myself quite a
lot.
Syria was full of love.
It was the capital of -- capital of culture,
Damascus, once.
We grew up in a cozy, lovely apartment where
we were very sheltered and all we knew was
peace and love.
And that has changed in 2011.
I was an English teacher back then.
I -- when the protests, when the peaceful
protests started in Syria, I took to the streets.
I remember my first protest, I was walking
alongside the doctor, the lawyer, the banker,
the schoolboy, the mother, the sister, the
wife, and for the first time in Syria, I could
hear my own voice.
For the very first time as I am chanting "freedom,"
everyone chanting "freedom, equality, liberty,"
that's the first time I heard my own voice.
Sadly, it didn't last for long.
After protesting for a year, I got caught
by my own police force and I was thrown in
prison for 15 days.
15 days, I was tortured.
Electrocuted.
Both of my arms were broken.
Two of my ribs.
I almost lost my left leg.
But I lived.
I got out.
And I'm so glad that I got out, because I
didn't want to die in a prison cell tortured
by my own police force.
This is not how I imagined myself ending up.
It changed for all of Syria, not just me.
Suddenly, barrel bombs fall down on people.
Suddenly, people are tortured to death in
prison cells.
Suddenly, we had to leave.
And I wish we never left.
I wish we didn't have to leave, because there's
nothing like home.
I miss that dinner table all the time.
I -- we fled, and as you can see, I was on
a dinghy.
And I sat alongside the doctor, alongside
the banker, the mom, the sister.
Syria was on that dinghy for me, and it was
really sad to see, because I wouldn't want
my home country to be on a dinghy in the middle
of the sea sinking.
Because we sank.
We sank and we got picked up by the Turkish
Coast Guard.
I filmed my whole journey and it was part
of a BBC documentary called, "Exodus: Our
Journey to Europe," and after a long journey
through Europe, 87 days of traveling on foot,
buses, lorries, I made it to the U.K.
And I had the privilege of working on the
second documentary so I went back to Europe.
I've been in Europe for nine months filming
the second documentary.
And nothing has changed.
We are locking up -- people up in containers.
We are building fences.
We are keeping people up where they are because
we don't want them to come, for the governments.
I notice that nothing has changed at all.
Europe is still struggling with the 1 million
people who arrived in 2015.
1 million people.
Lebanon has over 1.5 million.
After I got to the U.K., I was granted asylum.
I was given political asylum and I'm -- I've
been here for a long time.
And honestly, I wouldn't -- I mean, London
has been great to me.
London has a long tradition of welcoming refugees
and migrants, and I hope this tradition remains
for a long time.
I am here to read a letter that was written
by an Iranian refugee who was stuck in a camp
in northern France called The Jungle, and
I'm sure you know about The Jungle.
The Jungle no longer exists.
It was demolished.
It was burned to the ground.
And this letter isn't just written by Hossein,
and my story isn't just Hassan's story.
There's nothing unique about us.
It is the story of millions of people.
The fact that I'm here feeds on my survival
skills, because why am I here and they're
not?
But I'm glad I'm here to tell this story.
I'm glad to be here so I can be the voice
of people who are dying in the sea trying
to seek safety and peace, fleeing from war
and famine.
This is Hossein's story, Hossein's letter.
"Dear kind people of Europe and the U.K.,
I don't believe that in the heart of Europe,
center of technology and civilization, you
don't know that such a place exists.
"Children, women, fathers, and brothers just
want to live.
Now they are fleeing from their home and countries.
You call them refugees.
"They are humiliated in Europe.
Children, instead of drawing sweet childhood
memories, are drawing the cold of winter and
lack of water and food, disease, and standing
in the camps' long queues.
"This will put the history of the 21st century
to shame.
"In the center of Europe, cities with a population
of 7- to 8,000 people have been created for
refugees, with cold nights and dangerous,
lawless, and helpless, tiring, hungry days.
"Death is just a step away from refugees.
"Sometimes food is brought in via charities
with people, and people with hearts of gold,
but unfortunately it's not enough.
"Sleeping in tents while shivering from cold
and nightmares of home -- nightmares of homes
on fire and death.
Fear of radical extremists and fights and
teargas thrown by the police into the camps'
locations and tents.
"Dear kind people of Europe and the U.K.,
history will judge us according to our actions.
This will stain the heart of history and humanity
and it can never be removed.
"Dear people of U.K. and France, please open
the doors to us refugees and save us.
We are not terrorists.
We are not soldiers.
We're not politicians.
We are just ordinary people in pursuit of
our peaceful life.
"I only want to live.
Death is following me like my shadow in this
hellish jungle of hopes.
"Please open your hearts and borders to us
and end the war.
Thank you very much."
