KEY POINTS:
Supporters of Iranian asylum seeker Ali Panah are still pushing for him to get a legal right to stay in New Zealand after the Government released him from jail on strict bail terms on Monday.
Immigration Minister David Cunliffe said yesterday that negotiations were continuing to get Iran to accept the former drainlayer and other failed asylum seekers.
But the Iranian Embassy in Wellington issued a hardline statement saying Iran would only issue passport or other travel documents to Iranians "after their written application and recognition of their Iranian nationality".
Green MP Keith Locke, who has visited Mr Panah four times in jail and in hospital, said the Government should adopt Amnesty International's proposal to issue temporary work permits to Iranian Christian converts until it was safe for them to return to Iran.
"David Cunliffe is dreaming if he thinks there is going to be an agreement with Iran any time soon that would enable the return of Iranian Christians like Ali Panah," he said.
"A compassionate Government would live with this and not put Christian converts in jail indefinitely to force them to sign the papers."
Mr Panah, 40, who had been on a hunger strike for 53 days, was admitted to Auckland Hospital early yesterday morning complaining of stomach pains after eating plain yoghurt and drinking rose water brought by one of his supporters at the home of Orakei Anglican priest Clive Sperring, where he has been bailed, on Monday night.
Church spokeswoman Rev Ann Mellor said Mr Panah was kept on a drip in an accident and emergency room until he was allowed to return to Mr Sperring's house late yesterday.
"They have sent him out with a huge suitcase full of drugs and the vicar will be getting a dietitian to assist with the transition from fasting to eating," she said.
"When I saw him as he was released, he was pretty chirpy. He was very calm, big smiles, terribly grateful, as you would be. All of the medical bills and so forth are being funded by the Anglican Church."
Mr Cunliffe said the Government was also looking at options for deporting Mr Panah to a third country such as South Korea, where he lived for two years before coming to New Zealand in 2002. But Mr Locke said he should not be sent to any other country that might simply return him to Iran.
"I doubt very much that either South Korea or Malaysia, which has been mentioned, has offered permanent residence to Ali Panah, so that's not on. It's certainly not a very just solution," he said.
Auckland Queen's Counsel Grant Illingworth, who was called in on Sunday to act as Mr Panah's lawyer, said he was wading through "a very substantial file" on his new client and could not yet comment on two reports by the Refugee Status Appeals Authority which found that Mr Panah's statements to the authority lacked credibility.
National Party immigration spokesman Lockwood Smith, who backed another Iranian Christian convert, Thomas Yadegary, because of what he felt were the appeal authority's "flaws in logic" in his case, said he could not see any flaws in the authority's reports on Mr Panah.
"This person is an overstayer. He has been right through the appeals process," he said.
But Mr Locke said inconsistencies in Mr Panah's evidence to the authority should not detract from the key issue, which was that as a Christian convert he would be in danger if he was sent back to Iran.
- Additional reporting NZP
