FvA podcast interview with LGBTQ refuge and activist Sam

Sam is a Palestinian Jordanian queer social activist who came to the Netherlands as an LGBTQ refugee. He has faced discrimination in the Dutch migration system and is part of a small group of queer community refugees. He discusses the terrible crisis they faced last summer and the united struggles between various movements around the world. Sam is working on a project to help LGBTQ individuals in the Middle East and Africa. He also talks about the difficulties they faced trying to be transferred to a safe place in the Netherlands and the lack of support from certain organizations. He shares an incident where he spoke out against corruption and mistreatment in an emergency camp and faced backlash from the camp manager. Hello everybody and welcome to another Forum for Anarchisme podcast episode. This episode we will be speaking in English. My name is Joost and today in the studio we have Sam. Sam is a Palestinian anarchist and activist from Jordan who has come to the Netherlands as an LGBTQ refugee but stumbled upon a hard racist and discriminating migration system in the Netherlands or in the Dutch society in general. Sam will be sharing his experiences and also he will update us on what he's been up to. Take it away, Sam. How are you doing everybody? How are you? First of all, thank you Joost for having me and giving me this opportunity today to speak about a few points and a few incidents that happened to me and also to our small group of queer community refugees here in the Netherlands. First of all, I'm going to start with my name. My name is Sam. I'm a Palestinian Jordanian queer social activist, civil rights activist as well and also representative of the Queer for Justice movement, international movement and also a member of SGB, Student Justice for Palestine. Today, we're going to talk about a few things. Starting with the incident that happened to me personally in an emergency camp and also the terrible crisis that happened last summer with everybody that was outside terrible and also for the small group of queer community we were in terrible as well. Also, we're going to talk about this united struggles between Palestine struggle, queer struggle, also black liberation and every struggle around the world that has a base ground that holds everybody together fighting the same imperialism and the same fascism regimes and ideologies around the world and all the struggles I believe go in the same direction. Liberation is liberation. Love is love. I'm here also to speak about a project that I'm working on personally with our underground movement and Middle East queer movement to help out people in Jordan, other places in Middle East and Africa for being safe and having food and other assistance. As you guys know, queer don't have much rights in Middle East or Africa or other parts of the world. I'm a representative of my organization, Queer for Justice and a representative of a project, Queer's Love. We're going to talk about these things and I appreciate you guys having me. Thank you, Yost. Thank you so much, Sam, for being here. You can hold the mic. So, yeah, let's dive right into your time at the Apple. Sure. Wow. And that's where I met you too as well. You know, at this time I spoke in a protest back in August, beginning of August or mid of August, sorry. And we met me and Mark. So it's a kind of horrible situation. The way I'm going to explain it to you guys may be different than the way the media is showing. Some of the brothers and sisters in a different community service people and activists came and helped out at Apple, but the people who live there and slept there see a different vision. KUA and IND has back in the summertime, they have the chance to help those people and provide them food, provide them a safe spot and to carry the situation and that escalated to the level that's been escalated for thousands of people sleeping outside for days, weeks, and months. Me personally, I experienced three weeks in a row sleeping outside under raining and not having taken a shower. I have to go to friends once a week or twice a week to have some friends to take a shower. Not having food, not having any, you know, basic human needed, like any other refugees, you know, in general. And I'm going to talk about our situation as a queer refugee. We are a smaller group, five people. We were outside. We did the first step for IND. Did the first interview. We did the fingerprint, everything. We were waiting outside to be transferred inside, you know. But, you know, the KUA and Tora Abdo representative, they were saying there's not enough spaces and we cannot hold these people hostage. It's difficult. It escalated. It escalated, which is difficult. The Netherlands is a big country, around 17 to 18 million population. And it doesn't make sense that a few thousand immigrants or refugees couldn't be hosting guests in even places or hotels or even people's houses, you know. That's showing unwelcoming, you know, community to the refugees. So we, as refugees, we never expect that. One of the, you know, good economy country, one of the development country, you know, a country that concerns itself first for a country, which is I don't believe in this because we all say the word, but that's what they concern themselves. And they respect human rights. They respect refugees. And, you know, that wasn't, you know, in my opinion, that wouldn't exist, honestly, with Tora Abdo's crisis situation. So we, as a queer, we have units inside Tora Abdo. We have between four to six units. Every unit holds between six to ten people. And three to four units of those units was empty at that time in Tora Abdo, inside Tora Abdo. Well, we was our crisis and we was outside. So we was only five. Five queer members, refugee members, and we explained this to Representative Koua, Mr. Sander from LGBTQ plus asylum seeker. He did a fantastic job. He had been contacting Koua, been contacting the parliaments, had meeting with parliament members, came over and see things on the field with their vision eyes. So he did so many e-mails, sent proof, pictures. We have friends of ours that go from inside the queer community, go take pictures of the empty rooms, send it. And he sent it to the Koua, sent it to different levels, different parts of the world, you know, talked to the mayor. He did a so fantastic job and still Koua did not give us, you know, those places which is empty. So we had to find a way to be inside it. And that was not done, you know. And that was, you know, a mystery situation that people should know about it, that they did this crisis to escalate the situation because they want to do a politician work and politic work, you know. They don't want emigrant or refugee. They're not welcoming, you know. If they have hospice people, and that's my opinion, honestly, you know. But my opinion is they have the ability to hospice, you know, these few thousand people, you know. And should it not be escalate this crisis to this level, you know, people sleeping outside for several months. Like me personally, I did three weeks sleeping outside. So that was unacceptable. But again, I told you there was more politic and politician, you know, strategy, you know, from the countries and conservative people here, you know, in power and the sadness part. So, yeah, again, we go back to the situation. We tried to go inside. We talked to everybody who represent Tukwila, and Tor Abdul, staffs, you know, location manager. We contact everyone. We still not getting answer back either with e-mail or in person, either with us personally or Mr. Sandro, who is representative of LGBT plus asylum seekers organization. He's a hero. He's a man who supports over 700 refugees. We had an event last time. He was in it, and he spoke about his organization, give this man all the respect and love. And also, it was horrible. You know, we were feeling unsafe, you know. Some of us trans, some of us gay, some of us bisexual, some, you know, pansexual. We are different, you know, direction of careers, you know. But, you know, having yourself out there with, you know, with other community does not accept you maybe, you know, wasn't safe and wasn't the right decision from COA, you know, and wasn't unjustice because we have our own spot, and it's empty. A couple of those dorms empty, and we fit more than five people. But, like I said, again, it was for this reason that they hold us. Also, I want to speak about an incident that happened to me personally. You all know about it. Recently, back like a month ago in the end of November, as you guys know, I represent myself. I'm a civil and social activist for queer community and for every operation, black operation, Palestinian operation. You know, I represent all struggles around the world and I see all struggles connected to each other. So I was doing a lot of community service in my emergency camp. I was transferred in the end of August all the way until November. And a lot of groups of community and organizations that I work with, donate food, donate clothes, you know, and other assistance to the people. And the manager, the representative of the emergency camp, did not like this. Also, somehow they were abusing the refugees there. They did not give them assistance. I would have refugees come to me and please translate for me. I need to see the doctor. Women, children that are sick need to see the doctor. I was going there, talking to them, and they were not really showing a concern. And an appointment with a doctor takes several weeks. So I was complaining about this. We did a complaint. I talked to a couple of journalists, friends of mine. They come to the court, what's going on. And we did a couple of articles against this corrupt, also a lot of corruption happening in that location. And we were witnesses, a couple of people were witnesses. And those things won't come out to the media. They don't like it. They don't like the way I was helping people. They think that I'm getting too much authority, you know, at the spot, and I'm doing too much. I'm getting taken some kind of their, you know, a lot of attention, a lot of authority, a lot of, you know, people like me and believing on me. So somehow I was away from the camp for a week. I had a few events. I was representing and organizing and came back a week later to the camp and was a new manager. She's from the conservative party here. I really don't know the party. And she was a very religious lady in the way she was talking to me. She asked about, you know, when I was entering the camp, I have some luggage and stuff that my friends in the organization I work with donate to the people, microwave. We donate some food, clothes. And the way I was meeting my friend, carrying some stuff to the people inside, she approached me and asked, what are you doing? Where do you get this stuff from? I'm like, yeah, this is for the people, you know, this and that. So she was talking to me with an attitude. She said, I heard about you a lot. You're doing a lot of problems, this and this. Don't think you have authority here. You are a refugee. You like them and less than them, this and that. And I'm like, why are you talking to me? That's who you are. Can you represent? Can you identify yourself, like who I'm talking to? She refused. I have an attitude. She asked me about one of the fingers that I have, a pride flag. And I told her that's my pride flag. She said, okay. Then she started being more aggressive. So I see the homophobic with her. And I called her, like, do you have any problem with this? Do you have any problem with me as being, you know, queer? Do you have a problem with being a refugee? She said, no, I don't like you, blah, blah, blah, and started being more aggressive with me with talking. So, you know, I walk away from her. She came 30 minutes later. She said, pack your stuff, and you have to leave. But she never say where I'm going. And she never warn me, give me a warn, and give me any explanation why I was transformed, you know, from having a conversation. So I was in the kitchen having my meal, eating with everybody. And, you know, I stand up, calling everybody, say, guys, they want to kick me out. Are you guys okay with it? So people just came in to me and said, no, we want you to stay with us. You always help us. You do a lot for the community, for the people, for the refugees, and not acceptable. So she see somehow a lot of people come around me, support me. She didn't like this. So she called the police. So I was sitting. Everybody sitting was like around 100 people having a meeting in the kitchen. And the police, all of a sudden, 10 officers or 12 officers came and arrested me. And I was slapped, pushed all the way to the car, slapped to the side wall of the rooms, twist my arm, twist my neck, slapped me to the back window of the car when I arrived there, handcuffed me, and put me in the car and drive me to the police station. I was searched, you know, being verbally disrespected to me and stuff like this, and 10 minutes later came to me and said, yeah, you're good to go. And I'm like, what? What are you talking about? He said, no, you're not under arrest. You don't have a ticket. We brought you here just for a trip, and started laughing. They started laughing? Yeah, it's for a trip. Like they make a trip with me, just take me for a vacation or something. Okay. Yeah. So they just did this for nothing. Because, you know, the representative or the headquarter of the camp, the manager of the camp, was told to do this. Yeah. So kind of, you know, they gangbanged against me. Gangbanged against me. You know, they went gangbanging against me. So, yeah, I was discharged, and with no ticket, no violation, nothing. Not explaining why I was here, nothing. So I did a complaint, had a couple of my friends, spoke with them, my attorney. Also Mr. Sandro for our organization, LGBT plus asylum seekers, spoke with them. We did a couple of complaints to the mayor, to my attorney, to Mr. Sandro, to me personally, and to this day, we did not have a response back. Yeah. About the incident, even. We spoke with the police, spoke with the representative of police in the police station. We did a complaint, you know, until now we have no update. So there was a weird situation, you know, having been personally, and I experienced it, and it was horrible, man. It's just, I always think about it, it doesn't go away from my mind. Yeah, you've just been treated like an animal. Like I'm less than an animal, you know. Less than an animal. Even animals should not be treated like that. Yeah. Because I love animals. Animals are amazing. So they treat me, let's say, like I'm less than anything, like not even a human, you know. And it's scary that she has so much power also to do that. Exactly. What kind of power, what kind of authority does she have to tell the police to do what they did to me? Assaulted me, you know. Yeah. Verbally, and also slapped me, you know, and pushed me away. Like, it took two days that my neck, I was twisted all the way inside the car, all the way to the police station. Two days I was in pain in my neck. You know, red marks on my arms. And I was like, for what? All this for what? What did I do? Ended up like releasing me with no charge. You know, at least if I have a charge, I will feel like a little bit I did something. Then I have to fight to deny it or, you know, to prove myself innocent, which I am. But imagine, like, getting there and all this happened. And, you know, also I have a band that has a tile over here. They ripped it off. You know, they ripped it off. And they seized one gram of hash from me. This is illegal, which is crazy. And they were, like, telling me, like, you're going to see the lawyer, I mean, the judge tomorrow. And I'm like, can I call my lawyer? For, like, 10, 15 minutes. And after all of a sudden, they just released me. They're like, you're good to go. Yeah. With not calling a taxi or calling anything, telling me where to go, none of the stuff. Like, I have no clue where I'm going. So I slept in that night in the front of my house. And the next day, she drove me all the way to Tilter Abbey. And I did, you know, sign again all the way to the system. Then I was moved to a regular camp a few weeks later. Yeah. It's a crazy story. It happened in the Netherlands. And sorry about it. You know, I couldn't even describe. I couldn't even describe myself more professional as I did because I can't describe. There is no just word. There's no words or definitions that could describe the pain that I'm in from this situation. You know, it's not about physically. It could be mentally. It could be, you know, spiritually. It could be, you know, a different level of mentally and spiritually. Like, I feel I've stolen my intelligence. I sold me as a human. I sold my body. I sold my education, you know, my right as a human, you know. All these feelings just always stay with me. And I don't forgive them for what they did. I'm going to keep fighting. I'm doing a lawsuit right now against them. I'm working on it. I hope I get support from the community, from queer community, also from refugee community, from the people in Netherlands. I believe that everybody in Netherlands hates refugees. There are good people here. And we have to fight against this, you know, refugee-phobic, you know, or homophobic, or, you know, ideas. Well, it's like a cultural problem and a system government problem. Like, because the government, it's in their benefit to actually just waste it. Like, to neglect this whole system. Because, first, they don't need to put energy into it. They can blame all the refugees if they come here. And if it gets, like, if there is a crisis, they just blame the refugees. Because, yeah, they come here. And also, they don't need to put money into it. So, it's just like a benefit for them, almost, to neglect it in this way. Exactly. You know what? I just had, recently, two days ago, an interview with a journalist. And he was having an interview with me, converted with a Ukrainian refugee and me. And my opinion about the system, about IND, immigration, and about COA, about, you know, what I did experience myself and my friends from our queer community, or even refugees in general, I explained it to the journalist, you know, and he somehow, you know, understand what we went through. But the other part, you know, my friend was there as a Ukrainian refugee, did not experience what I experienced and other refugees did. So, they don't have to go to travel. You know, they're allowed to work. Me, personally, I'm not allowed to work. Any refugee, you know, other than we're Ukrainian, are not allowed to work. So, I guess the credit was to the Ukrainian refugee, 100% support the Ukrainian, you know, defend for themselves against Russia and against, you know, against any occupation, no matter what. As a Palestinian, you know, I consider my struggle as international struggle and feel every pain. So, I support Ukraine 100%. But what they do, politicians and politic, they cannot do, they want to divide us as refugees. They want to level us. Like, example, they want to have a luxury refugee and a low class refugee, you know. And I don't like to say that, but that's what they're doing right now. That's very sad. That's double standard. That's what's showing the hypocrisy of the government of Netherlands and double standard should never be accepted. They're using, like, they're scapegoating, like, refugees also. Like, they put them up for, like, opportunists or terrorists. Yes, exactly. They look at it like second class or third class refugee or immigrant. Because, you know, you're Europeans, you know, you're not white. Maybe, you know, you're not from, you know, the canton, you know, from somewhere else. But that shouldn't be a problem because, you know, we're all humans. Humanity, above all things, we're all humans. Like, we all have, you know, different, you know, skin of color or language or faith or ideology. But in the end of the day, we are humans. You know, we connect each other. We are unique, each person unique. And I believe that's one of the things I want to talk about. Every struggle in the world has a unique struggle. Every nation in the world has a unique culture, history, you know. And we, as humans, we connect each other. We're here for a mission. You know, we're here for every person who has a mission, you know, on Earth. You know, my mission is to help others, to help my community as a queer, to help all people need it. You know, I love what I'm doing. You know, I love to do community service, help others. It's a pleasure to me, you know. And I don't look at colors. I don't see colors. I don't see faiths. I see humans, you know. That's what I see. Yeah. So, can you talk a bit about what you're working on right now, what you're... So, today we're going to talk also about, I'm working on a couple of projects. First of all, I'm a member, a representative of the Queer for Justice movement. We are a movement here in the Netherlands and also an international movement. We, you know, helping a queer underground community, you know, to be supported, to have, you know, a place to live, to have, you know, food all needed, you know, to be connected with us and try to help as much as we could do. And also, we are into a lot of struggles, helping people different parts of the world with their struggles. You know, first of all, helping black liberation and standing for what rights black lives matter. Also, helping Palestinian cause stand for what rights in Palestine, you know, to be liberated and independent. And also, helping the indigenous people and standing for indigenous people all over the world, in America, you know, or South America. Also, you know, standing with Latino struggles, you know, every struggle around the world, Kurdish struggle, you know, every struggle around the world, we consider as part of us and we're part of it, you know. And as a queer, we want to tell the world that we are part of the world. We're proud to be queer and we're proud to be humans. And we stand and we have the same pain as every human. You know, we share the same food. We share the same earth. So, we all should be connected and support each other in different levels. So, yeah, that's the things I'm working on a project with the friends of mine from back home to help underground community in Jordan, Middle East, and Africa. It's called Queers for Love. We did a GoFundMe account. We're looking for 100,000 to help in over 15 different groups that we're connected with right now underground. And also, we're going to help more groups and looking for more people to help. Maybe we're not going to reach that amount, but somehow from whatever amount a person could help, could help someone that need. Back home people, they work, you know, with a few hundred dollars a month full time. They couldn't even provide food or provide houses for them. So, we have to live as a community. We're working on a project, Queers for Love. It's about community, helping each other, you know, living together, you know, to have social community that comes all the need from each other. Part of people working, part of people cooking, part of people, you know, planning some food, you know, help each other having their own community, you know, not needed from the outside somehow, you know. This is one of the projects, you know, that we're working on in Jordan and Middle East. It's really tough to be queer and to be open about it. Me personally, I experienced a lot of discrimination against me being a queer. I'm a social activist, a civil rights activist in Jordan. And I got arrested a couple of times, you know. I did the first queer pride, you know, last July in Jordan, you know. So, I was arrested tonight for it, for nothing, you know. The party was, you know, damaged and people was, you know, assaulted. Some of us, like, in the jail for just having a bride. It was not even a street. We was inside partying, having a bride inside the house, our own spot, you know. So, imagine what we're going through right now. Friends of mine that's facing that death, you know, from their family based on their sexuality. We help them out to have safe spot, food, you know, all needed. You know, try to come here to Europe, you know, if necessary, you know, which is everyone has the right to feel safe and to be loved, you know. So, those things, it depends on people, like, believing on helping others, you know. Really, guys, if you could help our project, we'd appreciate it. And thank you, Joss, for having me, like, for giving me this opportunity to be here and speak about my incident, my situation, other queer situations, you know. Be appreciated. I'm so appreciated for your hospitality and your support for this interview. Yeah, no problem. It does me a lot of good also. And so, how can people find this? Like, you talk about Queers of Justice and Queers for Love. Queers of Justice, we have Instagram account. It's a new account. So, also, we have Queers for Love. It's a project. It's not on social media or anything. It's on GoFundMe.com. You know, we're looking for 100,000 euro, but never know what the donation is going to be. But we're working on right now around 15 different groups, and we're looking to work with more people, you know, getting free houses, you know, places that, like, a group of people live together, help each other, you know, be safe, you know, not, you know, somehow to be away from people that not, you know, accept them as a queer, especially in the Middle East, you know, having their own bride, because we're working to have a bride every year, you know, back home. And we're not going to give up. Like, for our first bride in Georgia was amazing. We're proud of it. It was a few hours, and, you know, the party was over because of police, you know, but I think that's not going to make us give up. We're going to have a bride. We're going to be proud of ourselves, be beautiful, queer, beautiful, you know, and we're going to be, you know, enjoying, you know, ourselves and love our identity, you know, and our orientation doesn't matter with our humanity. We're all humans. So, yeah. Thank you, Mark. Thank you so much. You're welcome. I have one more question about this Queers for Justice. So, you said it's a group in the Netherlands. It's an organization we're building right now in the Netherlands to have a base to help, first of all, to help people overseas, the queer community, and also help refugees here, hopefully in the future, because we're not too many members, you know, of it. We're a small group, but everybody will come to be part of us and help in a different way. We're looking to do a fundraiser for the project and also for our group, our movement, and hopefully, you know, next year we build a good community, you know, and also build a society that loves and cares and concerns about other queers around the world and also other humans, which is humans above all things. You know, we are humans before even anything. Yeah, so, and people are free to join. Sure, you are free to join. I will add my Instagram account for Queers for Justice and also the project Queers Love, and also you guys will come to enjoy, we're going to have a lot of events next year, maybe starting by February, and I'm personally going to have a gallery, you know, and you guys will come, and please just give a thumbs up and check us out. Yeah. Okay, we'll put it in the show notes so people can find it. Thank you so much. There was one more thing you wanted to talk about here in Amsterdam, actually. You had an incident. Yeah, I talked about it already. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. The white supremacy? That lady. I talked about it, the manager. Oh, yeah, that incident, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. This incident happened last week. I was with friends of mine at the community house, you know, and me and my friend was going to the club around 2 a.m. in the night, and we were going through this park in the west area of Amsterdam, and a bunch of guys, like, you know, was walking, white supremacy guys, like five or six of them, and a black brother was on a bike driving, going his way, and they was calling him the N-word, so me and my friend were walking to them, and, what's going on, why are you guys calling this? So they tried to attack him, you know, and they tried to be more aggressive, and because it's only about himself, and they, like, five, but when we showed me and my friend, we became three, so they somehow, you know, squashed out and tried to, you know, solve the problem, say, oh, we're drunk, we don't mean it, blah, blah, blah, but they do mean it, you know, and those white supremacists exist here in big time, you know. I just want to give a thumbs up to our brother and sister, black community, Black Liberation Matters, Black Lives Matter. As a Palestinian, I love you so much, guys. You know, you guys, your struggle is my struggle. I have so much for our brother and sister, black community, you know, and as a queer, also, I love you. Queer Lives Matter, too, as well, and yeah. Thank you for having me. Thank you for all this. It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much. Okay, thank you all for listening. This was it for this episode. A little shout-out to groups who were helping refugees in their Apple and who are still doing some refugee work or activist work, so please check them out. Vrijenbond Friesland, they did some meals for the refugees there, and also check out De Deblokkeer Friesen. They have an Insta account, and they have a Treelink, which we will share in the description of the podcast, and check out Migrate. They also do a lot of refugee work, and of course, Sam's project. He's working out, but we'll also share him in the description. We don't know when we will be back with the next podcast and also what topic to cover, but if you have any suggestions, please let us know. Send us an email at fva.raiseup.net, and I wish you all nice holidays. Bye.