I spent the first 26 years of my life under a communist regime — a place where people were silenced, where fear dictated every word and every thought. We could not speak freely. We could not organize. Every home, every school, every conversation was shadowed by surveillance and suspicion.

When that regime began to collapse, I seized my chance for freedom.

I left everything — my family, my home, my country, my medical profession — because I believed no sacrifice was too great for the right to live free. I crossed oceans not for comfort but for dignity; not for wealth, but for the right to live as a free human being.

Once you have lived without freedom, you understand that it is not just a right — it is the very essence of being human.

Arriving in Canada, I was filled with hope. Yet, in

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