UK: Home Office Set To Deport Torture Victim Despite Asylum Application

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Ahmadis are a sect of Islam not permitted to call themselves Muslims in Pakistan. They are constitutionally forbidden to practice their faith and face frequent state persecution and violence from hard-line clerics.

Times of Ahmad | News Watch | UK Desk
Source/Credit: TOA/AT/QA/JL
By Staff Report | August 5, 2016

The Home Office is planning to remove an Ahmadi Muslim, Ali Adnan Munir, from the United Kingdom next week despite his outstanding application for asylum, it is learned.

Munir, who has been in detention at The Verne Immigration Removal Centre in Dorset since late July, is now informed that he'll be deported to Pakistan around the first week of August unless he obtains an order from the High Court.

According to the reports, Munir arrived in the United Kingdom in August 2014 with his parents and claimed asylum on the basis that he was kidnapped and tortured in Pakistan solely because of his Ahmadi faith. Munir's captors stopped him on the side of the road on the pretext of asking directions and bundled him into the back of a van. During this ordeal he was beaten, his mouth was gagged and his hands tied behind his back. He recalled the repeated beatings he received saying his captors behaved “as though they had conquered something great”.

Previously, in Pakistan, Munir ran a private school with his father in Lahore and both were active proselytizers of their Ahmadi faith. His captors believed Ali was using the school as a means of brainwashing children into accepting the Ahmadi faith, which Munir vehemently denied much to the displeasure of his captors.

Ahmadis are a sect of Islam not permitted to call themselves Muslims in Pakistan. They are constitutionally forbidden to practice their faith and face frequent state persecution and violence from hard-line clerics. The Ahmadis believe in Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad who they see as the latter day Messiah and a Prophet - a belief deemed heretical by mainstream Muslims.

Munir was threatened that his head would be severed and given to his parents unless he renounced his faith and accepted mainstream Islam. The blade held to Munir's neck to enforce this renunciation was used to make cuts across his chest and arms; yet he remained resolute. Those scars are still visible today. He managed to escape from the building he was being held and eventually made it to safety.

According to the sources familiar with Munir's legal case, he was assessed by a GP in Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre who noted his scars but took a decision that the scars represent “an assault – not torture”. Consequently, neither the Home Office nor the Immigration Judges gave any consideration to his scars as proof of his torture and his asylum was dismissed. In November 2014 other assessments both from within the detention centre and independently reported the presence of scars and found that it most likely originated from torture.

Nevertheless the Home Office has been refusing Munir's case but agreed to reconsider based upon his lawyers pressing the seriousness of his case. His parents, who claimed asylum at the same time were granted asylum in September 2015.

The Home Office's handling of the case has been called into question by Munir's lawyer, Qaseem Ahmed, who warns that if the Home Office doesn't give due regard to cases of such a sensitive nature, it gives little hope to those many asylum seekers not represented by lawyers.

Qaseem Ahmed, Director of Joules Law explained why Munir is detained today, stating, “after two years of litigation the Home Office on 7th June 2016 agreed that its previous decisions were erroneous as they did not take into consideration evidence of his father’s grant of asylum. In fact the Home Office explicitly advised Munir on 28th June 2016 not to proceed with further litigation as the Home Office recognises his outstanding application and will make a decision in due course. That decision until today has not been made."

He further explained the circumstances of the deportation decision saying,  “Munir was reporting to the Home Office as usual and was detained without proper reason and on 2nd August was told his
chartered flight had been booked for the week after. We managed to make contact with one senior civil servant within the Home Office who confirmed in writing to us that there is an 'anomaly' in that the team who detained Ali were not aware of his outstanding claim. We have tried our utmost to bring this to the attention of the removals team in Croydon but they will not take our calls.”

Munir has now resorted to an expensive Judicial Review application in the hope that a Judge will see the error so the Home Office cancels his flight and reconsiders his claim in full.

In a recent Judgement of the Scottish Court of Session on 26th July, Lord Glennie considered a fresh asylum claim of two Ahmadi Muslims and made particular reference to the worsening situation faced by Ahmadis in Pakistan and urged the Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, to intervene and apply anxious scrutiny before re-making her decision.

The recent events in Glasgow where the Ahmadi Muslim shopkeeper, Asad Shah was brutally stabbed, reflects the growing animosity towards Ahmadi Muslims creeping into the UK from countries which have openly declared Ahmadis as “not Muslim” and “liable to be killed”.




-- UK: Home Office Set To Deport Torture Victim


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