Akram Hamidi, 32, was recently deported to Tunisia from Switzerland on a Swiss flight. He came back to his country loaded with stories, songs and a heart that turned frail due a  Valium addiction in a Zurich prison.

Hamidi, a huge fan of rap music, was in shackles, along with two other Tunisians, all escorted by Swiss police officers to Tunisia. Hamidi had not been arrested on charges of terrorism or drug dealing. His crime was being an illegal migrant.

Akram Hamidi, 32, was recently deported to Tunisia from Switzerland on a Swiss flight. He came back to his country loaded with stories, songs and a heart that turned frail due a  Valium addiction in a Zurich prison.

Hamidi, a huge fan of rap music, was in shackles, along with two other Tunisians, all escorted by Swiss police officers to Tunisia. Hamidi had not been arrested on charges of terrorism or drug dealing. His crime was being an illegal migrant.

Hamidi had run a small clothing store and worked in a trading business to help support his large, poor family before he finally decided to migrate to Europe. Despite the burden of taking care of his family, Hamidi had closely observed political and social developments, especially after the Tunisian uprising.

In 2012, Hamidi joined a Tunisian rap band called Armada Bizerta where he began writing songs that reflected his revolt against the prevailing conditions, and contributed to their musical composition.

During that period, he identified with other young men who felt inspired by rap lyrics that describe their struggles against the ruling authority. His band tried to warn young Tunisians not to throw themselves into incalculable risks, like illegal migration on death boats to Europe.

Hamidi however did not heed his own advice. Although he never thought of secretly leaving his country, his worsening economic situation prompted him to take that risk.

He tried to migrate to Italy from the coastal town of Zarzis, in southern Tunisia, where many illegal migrants sailed after the revolution. A friend dissuaded him from travelling so Hamidi decided to return to his birthplace, Bizerte, hoping to find a better opportunity.

Soon afterwards, he found a way into Europe with an entry visa to France to participate in a rap show. But he did not like the idea of staying in that country and he returned to Tunisia.

His return in 2013 coincided with a deepening political crisis in Tunisia, characterized by social and security upheavals and anti-freedom violations, which also affected a number of rappers. This prompted Hamidi to return to Europe before the expiration of his visa to France. He traveled to Marseille and from there to the Italian city of Milan, where he stayed for about a year.

He applied for political asylum in Switzerland on the pretext of repression of freedoms in his country and managed to obtain a temporary residence permit and spent his first few days at a shelter packed with Arab, African, Albanian and Asian migrants.

Hamidi says Switzerland was akin to an open prison in which he could only move without money or companion between the shelter and the Swiss Immigration Department (SID) to complete his legal status file.

Problems started when an SID officer told him that his political asylum application had been rejectd and that he had to leave Switzerland as soon as possible. “I pulled myself together and decided not to leave the shelter and to discuss my case with the SID,” says Hamidi. “But they handcuffed me and put me in jail.”

He was taken in a prisoner’s bus from the courtroom to a prison in Zurich where he spent nearly a year because of his illegal residence. During his prison term, he suffered from anxiety and insomnia. The prison doctor allowed him to take tranquillizer pills. “I could not sleep without those tablets because I had severe feelings of anxiety inside the prison walls,” says Hamidi. “I was neither a criminal nor a terrorist – all I did was search for a better life.”

He continued to take the tranquilizers then moved onto Valium. Sometime later, his health deteriorated, especially because he had a congenitive heart disorder, which prevented him from exerting too much strain on his body, smoking or too much stress.

When another doctor in the prison examined Hamidi, he decided to operate and to implant a pacemaker. After the surgery, however, Hamidi felt his heartbeats were abnormal. He underwent another surgery, but he felt then as though a long wire had been floating inside his body. After the third surgery, it turned out that a wire had separated from the pacemaker. Hamidi says he will file a complaint against the medical team.

Although his dream of settling in a European country has faded, Hamidi learned a few things in Swiss prison: the German language and material to write lyrics about his and other migrants’ journeys.