{"id":105059,"date":"2019-10-30T13:12:46","date_gmt":"2019-10-30T12:12:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=105059"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:24:32","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:24:32","slug":"how-the-united-states-is-standing-in-the-way-of-the-love-between-a-student-and-her-iranian-fiance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2019\/10\/30\/how-the-united-states-is-standing-in-the-way-of-the-love-between-a-student-and-her-iranian-fiance\/","title":{"rendered":"How the United States is standing in the way of the love between a student and her Iranian fianc\u00e9"},"content":{"rendered":"

EUC student Andrea van Acker has had enough. As her fianc\u00e9 Ehsan is Iranian, he has never met her family. The United States has also blocked her Hotmail account, and her Persian rug shop on the Etsy.com<\/em> platform was shut down. Even the Belgian government is suspicious of her. Multiple attempts to bring Ehsan to Belgium have all failed. But Andrea isn\u2019t giving up and is even starting a lawsuit to get her rug shop back online: \u201cI\u2019ll show them.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRonald van den Heerik<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>

Summer 2018. Andrea (22) travelled on her own through Tajikistan, where she met Ehsan via couch surfing. They kept meeting each other in unexpected places and started doing a lot together. When Andrea visited a Syrian refugee camp in (Kurdish) Iraq for a photo-reportage a couple of months later, Ehsan took a 24-hour bus journey to meet her there. Not an area without danger, because IS fighters are never far away. Despite all this, they became much closer.<\/p>\n

Engaged<\/h2>

\u201cThe situation in a refugee camp isn\u2019t really one that makes you want to start a relationship. But actually those intense conditions lead to strong connections between people. Once I arrived home, I missed Iran and wanted to see Ehsan. So I flew to Iran again and travelled with him across the country for four weeks.\u201d That was the \u2018holiday of her life\u2019. They fell in love. Ehsan lives and has a rug shop in the capital city, Tehran, and Andrea flew out there again for the Iranian New Year, met his family and a few months later, he asked her to marry him. Andrea said yes.<\/p>\n\n\t

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\n\t\t\u2018You don\u2019t want to start a relationship in a refugee camp, but those intense conditions lead to strong connections\u2019\n\t<\/blockquote>\n\n\t<\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n

\u201cIt was a real jump in at the deep end, but it was a chance I wanted to take. I didn\u2019t have much time to decide. It was a question of now or never, and for me \u2018never\u2019 wasn\u2019t an option\u201d, she explained. Andrea did make clear to Ehsan that she did not want to move to Iran to play the role of a traditional Iranian housewife. \u201cAnd I\u2019m also not converting to Islam\u201d, she told him. \u201cBut he had every respect for this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Difficulties<\/h2>

Once back in Antwerp, she tried to obtain a visa for him so he could visit her friends and family. She wanted Ehsan to see Belgium as he had never been in Europe, and wanted him to meet her family. But that proved far from easy: America intervened. \u201cThe situation with Iran escalated under Trump\u201d, explained Andrea. \u201cThey became the black sheep of international politics. That\u2019s partly why the Belgian government doesn\u2019t want to admit Iranian nationals. They\u2019re afraid that Ehsan won\u2019t go back. And my visa to Iran has also been refused twice. They thought it was suspicious that I went there so often.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blockades<\/h2>

All this has affected Andrea. \u201cI became extremely upset about this, but also really angry. We tried everything and guaranteed to meet all the requirements, but it sometimes feels as though the government doesn\u2019t trust us.\u201d<\/p>\n

When she thought the situation couldn\u2019t get any worse, Andrea\u2019s Hotmail account was blocked and her Etsy online shop, where she sells Persian rugs, was shut down. Again, the US threw a spanner in the works. \u201cThey want the Iranian economy to crash, so all trade is being blocked\u201d, stated Andrea. After America withdrew from the Iran Nuclear Deal in 2018, Iran also started stepping back from the deal in May this year, which led to further counter-reaction in the form of political and economic sanctions. \u201cThis has had destructive consequences for the country itself, but also for individuals such as Ehsan and me\u201d, stated Andrea.<\/p>\n

Her contact with visa management company VFS Global resulted in her e-mail account being blocked. \u201cAccording to Microsoft, by contacting this company I was violating American foreign policy\u201d, Andrea explained. \u201cThat was a real shock: all my personal and business e-mail runs via that account.\u201d The fact that she had asked questions about journeying to and from Iran was sufficient reason for Microsoft to block her account. She signed a protest and five days later was able to use her e-mail again.<\/p>\n

Rug trade<\/h2>\n\t
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\n\t\t\u2018They took all the rugs offline because I was selling \u2018prohibited products\u201d\n\t<\/blockquote>\n\n\t<\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n

Her online shop was also shut down in a similar way. \u201cBut that even went a step further\u201d, stated Andrea. \u201cEhsan has a rug business and taught me a lot about rugs. So I\u2019ve developed a bit of an obsession for Persian rugs and started earning some extra cash with a second-hand shop. I wanted to do that via Etsy, a platform that\u2019s great for purchasing vintage and handmade products.\u201d She searched for Persian rugs in the Netherlands: luxury products that were sold with a certificate of authenticity. \u201cBut at a certain point I received a notification that my adverts were being deactivated, because they needed to investigate whether my shop was in line with their policy. A few days later they took all the rugs offline because I was selling \u2018prohibited products\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andrea is convinced that blocking her Etsy account is not permitted. After all, she didn\u2019t export anything to the US and didn\u2019t import anything from Iran, which is prohibited because of economic sanctions; she simply trades within Europe\u2019s internal market. \u201cJust like Facebook needs to adhere to European privacy legislation, Etsy also needs to adhere to European trade legislation.\u201d<\/p>\n

She decided not to accept the situation and started a lawsuit: \u201cOf course, I don\u2019t have the money to pay for an expensive European trade lawyer, because these people charge three to four hundred euros per hour. So I started looking for a pro-bono lawyer. My website is still offline. If you consider that I used to sell a couple of rugs a month, that\u2019s some four to five hundred euros I\u2019m missing out on every month. I\u2019ve discussed this with a European law lecturer and with someone who is studying relations between Europe and Iran. And they also say: \u2018This is crazy. It\u2019s not allowed, sue them.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Despair<\/h2>\n\t
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\n\t\tPeople ask: \u2018What if he\u2019s a terrorist? What if he locks you up and you\u2019ll have to pray five times a day?\u2019\n\t<\/blockquote>\n\n\t<\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n

What Andrea doesn\u2019t understand is that a few whims of \u2018Mr. Trump\u2019 have consequences that extend far outside the country of Iran itself. \u201cThey remove your right to see your boyfriend and your right to earn money with products that originate from that country. And I have family in the US that I\u2019m no longer permitted to visit\u201d, stated Andrea.<\/p>\n

She does admit that she\u2019s sometimes on the brink of despair. \u201cI start thinking: what on earth should I do? Is there anything else I can do?\u201d Those close to her often don\u2019t really understand her situation and think she needs to be \u2018cautious\u2019. \u201cPeople ask: \u2018What if he\u2019s a terrorist? What if he locks you up and you\u2019ll have to pray five times a day?\u2019 Or they say: \u2018He\u2019s only using you for your passport.\u2019 People throw that one at me constantly. I think it\u2019s so small-minded\u201d, explained Andrea. \u201cSometimes I do wonder whether this relationship is worth it. But most of the time I think: \u2018Goddamnit. I\u2019ll show them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Married for paperwork<\/h2>

A quick wedding would solve a lot of problems. \u201cBut the last thing I want to do is to get married for the paperwork\u201d, stated Andrea. \u201cIt sometimes feels as though I\u2019m living in two worlds that are incompatible.\u201d If they get married, Ehsan can come to Belgium under the pretext of \u2018family reunification\u2019. \u201cBut I don\u2019t want that\u201d, stated Andrea. I don\u2019t want to marry purely for practical reasons. Moreover, Ehsan has never been to Belgium. \u201cHow can you know that you want to live somewhere if you\u2019ve never been there?\u201d<\/p>\n

But sometimes she feels she has no choice. For now the situation is all about sitting tight and hanging in there. Andrea: \u201cEhsan and I call each other a lot, and we really support each other. He\u2019s an amazingly calm person. When I start ranting, as I often do, he puts everything in perspective. And I need that sense of calm.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t

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De redactie<\/h2>\n\t\t\n\t\t
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