“I disobeyed their cruel order,” said Majid Hamidi*. “Because of the love I have for my people, I would not make the police forces under my command slaughter protesters.”
Hamidi, a former police major, fled Iran fearing for his life after refusing to suppress demonstrations against fuel price rises in 2019. He initially hoped to stay in Turkey, but was found and harassed by Iranian intelligence agents, eventually feeling “forced” to flee to Britain.
But after a traumatic voyage across the English Channel in May last year, where his sinking dinghy was rescued by the Royal Navy, Hamidi received a very different welcome than the one he expected as a political refugee.
