For five years Tayyip Oruc has been living under a death sentence after fleeing his Turkish homeland.

Now his final application for asylum has been rejected, he tells Gavin Havery how he fears that sentence may be carried out.

EVERY day for the last five years, Tayyip Oruc has been living with a death sentence. He knows he could be arrested at any time and be deported back to Turkey, where he fears he will be tortured and killed by military police. Tomorrow, he is attending another monthly meeting with the immigration service, but he is scared it could be his last.

His final appeal for asylum has been rejected and that means he could be sent back to the oppressive environment that forced him to flee his family's farm in the first place.

"I feel very bad about it and I am so worried about what might happen to me that I can't sleep," says Tayyip, 30, who is now living in Yarm, near Stockton. "I have been worrying since I got here and I have been living with this situation for a long time.

"But I am more worried now than ever before because I have lost my appeal and they have said I am not allowed to appeal against this decision anymore. At least before there was hope but now I don't know what will happen and there is nothing I can do because it is in the hands of immigration.

"They can't guarantee that my life will be safe in Turkey - they just think that I lost my appeal and that is that."

He says he has suffered at the hands of the brutal Turkish regime because he insisted on maintaining his Kurdish culture, language and identity. As a child he would have his fingers whacked by teachers until they bled if he so much as dared to speak in his native Kurdish tongue.

This kind of oppression and the use of brutality has bred resentment among the people who make up nearly a third of the population of Turkey, a nation with a record of human rights abuses.

When he grew up, Tayyip continued to speak Kurdish and play Kurdish music despite the risk of upsetting the Turkish authorities. "They make you sick by stopping you to check your papers all the time, every day when you are entering and leaving a town. It is just persecution and all the people want to do is live their lives," he says.

To stand up for his people, he worked with the Kurdistan Workers Party or the PKK, Kurdish guerrilla soldiers who hid in the mountains near his village. The two sides have been involved in bitter fighting for nearly two decades and since September 11 PKK members have been increasingly regarded as terrorists.

His role was collecting funds and food in his minibus from villagers sympathetic to their cause, and delivering it to the gangs at secret meetings. Threats, beatings and detentions at the hands of cruel Turkish soldiers who would humiliate the Kurdish villagers became common.

'They would beat me around the head and body and make me stand on one leg for long periods of time," he recalls. "It was very frightening but there was nothing I could do because we heard stories about people who just disappeared."

Five years ago he was arrested but this time the soldiers did not let him go. When he was so bruised and battered he could not take any more he finally admitted he worked with the PKK. The authorities asked him to set a trap for his friends by arranging a meeting and tipping them off so they could be arrested.

"I had to agree to it otherwise they would have killed me, so I had no choice. But I knew there was no way I could do this to my own people. I went home for three days and decided to just disappear because I knew they would arrest me as well as them. I knew that they wouldn't say to me you are free to go - that is impossible in Turkey."

Tayyip made arrangements via his friends in the PKK to leave his family and friends in Turkey but he was not sure where he was going. He put his trust in a lorry driver who took him across Europe in the back of a truck, in cramped conditions with several others with very little food or water.

They changed vehicles once before crossing the Channel to get to Britain. Tayyip shakes his head as he recalls the dangerous five-day journey, which ended in Teesport near Redcar.

"Imagine putting your life at risk to get locked in the back of a lorry, which is stuck on the cargo area at the bottom of a ship. It must be very bad if that is the best alternative," he says.

Back at home the authorities terrorised his family after his disappearance. His brother was arrested while his parents were beaten by the soldiers who were enraged their plan had fallen through. Their cows, a horse and pet dog were killed while they themselves were threatened with being forced off their land. Since arriving on Teesside, Tayyip has been fighting for the right to stay so he does not have to go back to his old life.

Even in Britain it has not been easy for him and he has been arrested on numerous occasions while the authorities decide what to do with him. He has been held at Lindholme Detention Centre at Doncaster, a detention centre at Manchester Airport and, for his 28th birthday in 2001, campaigners held a party outside Holme House Prison in Stockton to show their support for his plight. Today he lives with friends and he receives no state handouts or benefits.

Every day he wakes up and knows there could be a knock at the door or a letter that brings bad news, maybe from home, maybe closer to home - the news that he is returning to Turkey and certain imprisonment, if not worse.

The only thing he has to occupy his time is his case, a campaign to fight, literally, for his life. Survival has become a full-time job for him. Every month he has to attend meetings with the immigration service. His application for asylum was initially rejected and subsequent appeals have also failed. He has been told there is not enough evidence that he was at risk but, as he points out, the Turkish authorities do not keep documents about what is going on.

He would have had more chance of being successful in his asylum application if he had been involved in acts of terrorism against the Turkish government but, by his own admission, he never so much as picked up a weapon.

Tayyip feels as though he has exhausted every possible legal avenue but is still not giving up. He has engaged a new solicitor, a Kurdish Turk, who is trying to present new evidence to the immigration service to prove that his life is in danger. Tayyip is now pinning his hopes on buying a little more time before he can convince the authorities to let him stay on Teesside.

He adds: "This has been going on for so long now I am tired but what else can I do. If I don't keep trying then there is nothing."