{"id":105795,"date":"2016-04-11T15:20:01","date_gmt":"2016-04-11T15:20:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2016\/04\/11\/airport-staff-confiscated-a-mans-ashes-because\/"},"modified":"2016-04-11T15:20:01","modified_gmt":"2016-04-11T15:20:01","slug":"airport-staff-confiscated-a-mans-ashes-because","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2016\/04\/11\/airport-staff-confiscated-a-mans-ashes-because\/","title":{"rendered":"Airport staff confiscated a man’s ashes because his husband wasn’t recognized as next of kin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Airport staff confiscated a man’s ashes because his husband wasn’t recognized as next of kin<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

gaywrites<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Brace yourself for the saddest story I have heard in a long time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Marco Bulmer-Rizzi and\u00a0David Bulmer-Rizzi got married earlier this year in England and went on their honeymoon to Australia. Tragically, David died during their honeymoon after falling down a flight of stairs. Because Australia doesn\u2019t recognize marriage equality, David\u2019s death certificate lists him as never married.<\/p>\n

Marco traveled back from Australia with his husband\u2019s ashes and had to fly through Hong Kong. That\u2019s where airport officials confiscated David\u2019s ashes, claiming that because Marco wasn\u2019t recognized on David\u2019s death certificate, he was not David\u2019s next of kin.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Eventually, David\u2019s ashes were returned to Marco at the airport, but not before a series of hard and traumatizing conversations. Marco has filed a complaint, and a security official for the airport said they couldn\u2019t find records of this case.<\/p>\n

\n

At the stopover in Hong Kong \u2013 where same-sex marriage is not legal \u2013 security officials spotted the ashes as they went through the X-ray scanner, prompting a guard to apprehend him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was taken to one side and she said, \u2018What\u2019s in this box?\u2019\u201d he told BuzzFeed News. \u201cShe wanted to open the box. And I said, \u2018These are human remains. It\u2019s my husband. My husband died while we were in Australia. She just looked at me and said, \u2018I need to take this away.\u2019\u201d But before taking the container, the guard inquired again about the identity of the deceased.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe said, \u2018Who did you say died?\u201d And I said, \u2018My husband. And this is his passport.\u2019 And she said, \u2018No. I\u2019m gonna take this [the ashes] away.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Bulmer-Rizzi, who was still in shock from the sudden loss of his husband a week earlier, said that when the security guard removed the ashes he had a \u201cmeltdown\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI put my hand down [on the box] and said, \u2018No, you can\u2019t. I need to see your supervisor.\u2019\u201d The official\u2019s manager arrived to find Bulmer-Rizzi in a state of distress, trying to stop what was left of his husband from being taken from him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like I was losing him again,\u201d he said, adding: \u201cAll I wanted was to be able to travel with David\u2019s ashes on me so he wouldn\u2019t have to travel back by himself.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Don\u2019t you ever tell me that marriage equality doesn\u2019t mean anything.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Airport staff confiscated a man’s ashes because his husband wasn’t recognized as next of kin gaywrites: Brace yourself for the saddest story I have heard in a long time.\u00a0 Marco Bulmer-Rizzi and\u00a0David Bulmer-Rizzi got married earlier this year in England and went on their honeymoon to Australia. Tragically, David died during their honeymoon after falling … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Airport staff confiscated a man’s ashes because his husband wasn’t recognized as next of kin”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[13011],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105795"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105795\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}