Nearly five years after his story spread globally, the Syrian refugee Hassan Al-Kuntar returned to the fore again, but this time from the broad “gate” of Canada, which stripped him of his refugee status and granted him its nationality, so that his dream could come true after long suffering.
A suffering he talked about in an exclusive interview with Al-Arabiya.net years ago, which we will recall after shedding light on the latest developments in his story.
In an interview on the “The Early Edition” radio program of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation “CBC”, before the citizenship ceremony, on Wednesday, Kuntar expressed his enthusiasm.
Hassan Kuntar
He said, “Today I am Hassan al-Kindi, and I wish all refugees in the camps and all those who dream of freedom in the face of dictators and war criminals to enjoy what I feel today.”
His fate is unknown
Al-Kuntar was working as a marketing manager for an insurance company in the UAE, but his fate became unknown after the outbreak of the Syrian war and the authorities’ refusal to renew his residency.
The authority stated that if he returned to his homeland, he would have been forced to join the compulsory military service under the regime of Bashar al-Assad, so he decided to stay in the UAE illegally until he was arrested in 2017 and sent to Malaysia, which is one of the few countries that receive Syrian travelers. .
The Syrian refugee, Hassan Al-Kuntar, was making headlines in 2018, when he was stranded, announcing, on Wednesday, that he had obtained Canadian citizenship.
Al-Kuntar, who was stuck in 2017 for seven months at Kuala Lumpur Airport, Malaysia, said in an interview with Al-Arabiya.net that he “arrived in Malaysia and lived there for 4 months, and later he tried to leave for Ecuador, but the Turkish airline prevented him from doing so.”
“A week later, I traveled to Cambodia, but it did not allow me to enter and returned me to Malaysia, and because I had stayed there for an additional month before that, Malaysia also refused my entry, and I was prevented from leaving for another country except for Syria because I was deported from Cambodia,” says Al-Kontar.
Al-Kuntar continues to tell his story toAl Arabiya.net He said, “My trip to Malaysia was not planned in advance, but because it grants Syrians a three-month visa, upon arrival at its airports.”
public opinion case
It seems that Al-Kuntar has adapted to his life in the transit area of Kuala Lumpur Airport, and his story has turned into a public opinion issue after he began narrating it on social media through videos he broadcasted in both Arabic and English, which led to the solidarity of others with him.
Al-Kuntar added, in his speech that took place years ago, “I used to shower in the bathrooms for people with special needs at the end of the night, and the airline provided me with three meals a day, and I slept under the stairs or on chairs, while my clothes were washed by one of the cleaners at the airport at his home.” for money”.
About this adventure, he says, “Life in the transit area is difficult, and I used to start my day by communicating with others, especially after I got to know Canadian lawyers, to find a way out of it. This was the main problem.”
Although Kuntar arrived in Canada with the help of a Canadian activist who defends the rights of refugees, he refuses to mention the names of the journalists who worked to help him in the beginning.
Many expressed solidarity with Kuntar during his stay in the transit area, and they are foreigners, according to him, but they do not belong to humanitarian or official organizations, but rather all their efforts were individual.
