Niccolò Califano, food blogger and former competitor of Masterchefshared a moment of great despair on social media. The reason is the refusal of a tourist visa to his girlfriend, an Iranian citizen, for the second time in a row. Niccolò, visibly moved, declared:
I’m angry with the government. In fact I don’t even know who to blame.
The woman was supposed to arrive in Italy for a few days, but as reported by Niccolò, the Italian embassy in Tehran rejected the application even though the documentation was complete. The officer reportedly said: “Everything is fine, but you are IranianA sentence that left the food influencer incredulous and frustrated.
The surreal proposal: get married to let her enter Italy
As a solution, the embassy suggested marriage as the only way to get her into Italy, advice that brought tears and anger to Niccolò.
But I’ll marry you too, at least I’ll marry you because then you can be free. But at least let us try to have a relationship. Not they allow me to love a person, to try.
His frustration is not only about bureaucracy, but about discrimination that seems inexplicable and unjust, an obstacle to the most natural right: to love whoever you want, of whatever nationality.
Niccolò stressed several times that the video transcended his work, but he did it to express the difficulties of that moment:
It was not a professional gesture on my part, but I am a person and I have my weaknesses, imperfections and my anger. And the only thing I can do is share.
Niccolò and his girlfriend find themselves facing an obstacle that goes beyond physical distance: a barrier linked to rules and prejudices. His story, unfortunately, offers an insight into the reality that many Iranian citizens face every day: paying personally for the mistakes made by others.
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