Home Ministry will consider issuing special pass to stranded Syrian

PUTRAJAYA: The Home Ministry would consider issuing a special pass for the 36-year-old Syrian presently stuck in transit at the klia2 airport said caretaker deputy Home Minister Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohamed.
Describing the situation that befell Hassan al Kontar (pix) as "once in a blue moon" occurrence, Nur Jazlan said Hassan would have to pass background checks prior to being issued the special pass under the country's Syrian Refugee Programme.
"At present, there are around 3,000 Syrians under the programme.
"He will go through a thorough background check to rule out issues such as the person having Daesh influences and such," said Nur Jazlan.
"This is something we impose on Middle Eastern people who come to Malaysia from war-torn countries," he told reporters after officiating the Immigration Day celebrations at the Home Ministry, here, today.
His response came after reports of Hassan and his video blogs emerged yesterday, documenting his struggle at the transit of klia2 in Sepang for more than a month.
In a situation eerily redolent of the Steven Spielberg movie, The Terminal, Hassan has since posted 14 videos blogs of his daily life on Twitter and Facebook, that has attracted the attention of human rights groups and the media.
Hassan, who said he had been living at the airport since March 7, fears arrest if sent back to Syria, where a civil war has been raging for the past seven years.
US President Donald Trump warned this week of imminent military action in Syria over a suspected poison gas attack.
"I am afraid of being deported to Syria, not because I'm a coward, not because I don't know how to fight, but because I don't believe in fighting," he told Reuters via Skype.
"I don't want to be a killing machine, destroying my own home and harming my own people."
Reuters reported that the Immigration Department and the airport did not respond to requests for comment. However, Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad (MAHB) replied in a one-sentence statement to theSun.
"We are aware of the matter but it is currently being handled by Immigration and the airlines," an MAHB spokesperson said.
The UN refugee agency confirmed meeting Hassan but said it could not comment on individual cases.
"UNHCR is aware of this case and have reached out to the individual and the authorities," Yante Ismail, the agency's spokeswoman in Kuala Lumpur, said in a statement to Reuters.
A former insurance salesman, Hassan said he was living in the United Arab Emirates when the war in Syria broke out.
He was deported to Kuala Lumpur in 2016 after the Syrian embassy in the UAE allegedly refused to renew his passport.
"They deported me to Malaysia as it's one of a very few countries which allows Syrians with no visa," he said.
It took him more than a year before he raised enough money to buy a flight ticket to Ecuador, but the airline refused to board him. He did not say how he raised the money.
He tried instead to fly to Cambodia, but was allegedly rejected by immigration authorities again and was deported back to Kuala Lumpur.
He has been living in klia2's transit zone for 37 days, he said, relying on the kindness of airport and airline staff for food and supplies.
"Things you never thought about as a problem become a problem in this situation," he said.
"Where can you take a shower? What time? If you want to clean your clothes, where will you dry them?"
In the 2004 film, The Terminal, Tom Hanks plays an Eastern European traveller stuck in New York's JFK airport after his passport is revoked following a coup back home.
That film was inspired by the true story of an Iranian man who lived in Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport for 16 years.