Outraged demonstrators stage protest against deportation of Glasgow student

Furious students and activists protested the deportation of Majid Ali, a City of Glasgow College student currently held at Dungavel detention centre.

Majid claimed Asylum in 2010, the year his brother was abducted and “disappeared”, allegedly by Pakistani secret police.

Two months ago both his cousin and uncle were shot dead during a government raid on his family house.

If he goes back, “after a week, two weeks, he will go missing,” says Shahid Baluch, a senior activist with Amnesty and Human Rights Watch who stays with Majid and has known him since he arrived in the UK.

Nako Hasan (left) and Shahid Baluch, Baloch activists

He told The Tab: “Last week, the Pakistani government demanded the UK extradite 20 prominent Baloch activists, I was in the top 10. The ISI are very very dangerous and they abducted my friend in 2009. I am scared for Majid if he goes.”

Chris Stephens, MP for Glasgow South West said: “It is fairly obvious to anyone looking at this case that Majid should be allowed to stay as there would be a genuine fear for his life if he was deported.”

“I join the demands to end the disgraceful and unfair way in which those who seek sanctuary in the UK are treated.”

A motion was tabled in the House of Commons earlier today due to pressure from a letter-writing campaign as well as simultaneous protests in Edinburgh and London.

Mansoor Baloch, President of Balochistan Republican Party

Addressing the crowd, Mansoor Baloch, President of the Balochistan Republican Party in the UK said, “If he is deported, they will arrest him, they will torture him and they will dump his body.”

Sanjay Lago

Majid has studied ESOL, (English for speakers of other Languages) since 2013. Sanjay Lago, President of City of Glasgow College, said, “even though we’re doing this for Majid we’re doing it for so many students that disappear. Lecturers have said to me, especially in the ESOL department, we get students who we never hear from again and don’t know where they go.”

“Those in government don’t need to worry about 3am raids, or being sent to their deaths.”

Majid’s family are from the Balochistan province and are members of a party which seeks autonomy from the Pakistan government after being annexed in 1948. Pakistan’s notorious ISI intelligence agency has been linked to hundreds of disappearances of Baloch nationalists over the last decade.

NUS Scotland President, Gordon Maloney, beseeched the crowd, “Say no to an asylum system that shuts the door on those who need it most, those fleeing persecution, war, poverty and death. “

Gordon Maloney

“These people, Majid and thousands of others, aren’t just numbers or stats, they’re human beings with lives and families and hopes and dreams… and Westminster just couldn’t care less.”

City of Glasgow College executives (Left-right) Shawn Murphy, Ruta Simonyte, and Scott Gorman-Cochrane.

PhD students Atif Al-Balushi and Mufeeth Choudhury, studying at Stirling and Aberdeen, show their solidarity.

Concluding, Gordon Maloney told the Tab, “Here we are genuinely talking about somebody’s life. If you’re being tracked by secret security services, you can’t prove you are, almost by definition.”

“On one hand we’re talking about a human disaster; torture and murder. On the other, what? Someone who doesn’t perfectly fit Asylum criteria? There’s no choice there, it’s his life.”

City of Glasgow College

The NUS drafted a template letter you can send your MP here.