This is Abas Amini. He's a Kurdish political poet from Iran, where he was jailed for his views. Two years ago he fled to the UK, but recently the UK was refusing to grant him asylum. So a week ago he sewed up his eyes, mouth and ears in an attempt to get some publicity for his cause.
Two days later he was granted asylum, and the following day a nurse cut him open again.
I don't know whether his protest was what got him asylum.
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