8/8/2019 Model letter - Mit Must Stay!

1/2

Model Letter to Stop the Deportation of Mit Singh Chopra

We need to maximise the pressure to stop this outrageous injustice to a youngAfghan student asylum seeker. Please use (and adapt as necessary) the attachedmodel letter. Get it to your own MP, community or faith leader, trade unionorganisation or student union, Stop the War, Unite Against Fascism or anti-racistgroup etc.

Send it yourself to Theresa May (Home Secretary) and Emily Thornberry (Mits MP) omitting the last paragraph.

For the Home Secretary, Theresa May: mayt@parliament.uk or fax 0118 934 5288.

For Emily Thornberry MP: THORNBERRYE@parliament.uk

Please copy to mail@movementforjustice.org.uk

....................................

Re: Home Office reference: J1162567

Dear

I am writing because I am alarmed and angry at the mistreatment and threateneddeportation of Mit Singh Chopra, a 19-year old Sikh asylum seeker from Afghanistan.Mit is a student at Westminster Kingsway College and lives with his brothers familyin Islington. He has three older brothers in this country; all of them and their wivesare British citizens. Their children were all born in Britain. That is Mits whole family -

he has no-one left in Afghanistan.

Mit came to Britain in 2007. He left Afghanistan to escape persecution and abuse asa member of the dwindling Sikh minority: at one point he was kidnapped by Talibansupporters who tried to force him to convert.

On Friday 24 September officers from the UK Borders Agency raided the flat whereMit lives at 6.00am, woke up his family, went into all the rooms, lifted the bed coversto peer at his niece (6) and nephew (2) as they slept, and took him away under

arrest. He is now in Harmondsworth Detention Centre and has a deportation order for5 October.The judge who turned down Mits asylum claim said that I accept the credibility ofthe fact, and order, of the events described by the appelant (Mit Chopra). The solebasis for sending him back to Afghanistan is the claim that it is now safe. That claimis based on the British Governments own Country Guidance on Afghanistan, but itis plain to everyone that this is not true. It is a political fiction to justify thecontinuance of a deeply unpopular war.

The US/British led invasion and occupation of Afghanistan has made the countrymore unsafe. The persecution Mit experienced and witnessed came after the

invasion. In the early 90s there were 200,000 Hindus and Sikhs in Afghanistan;today there are 3000. Very many have left since the invasion.

8/8/2019 Model letter - Mit Must Stay!

2/2

I do not accept Mit Chopra and other Afghan refugees being sacrificed to maintain alie.

Moreover, Mit suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and depression as a result

of his experiences in Afghanistan and is receiving regular psychiatric support. Thereis virtually no mental health care in Afghanistan. The Medical Foundation for the Careof the Victims of Torture has stated If Mr. Chopra were to be returned toAfghanistan where he was previously tortured the inevitable re-traumatisationwould cause his precarious mental health to deteriorate further. There would be ahigh risk of significant self-harm.

I am calling on you to support Mit Chopras right to live in Britain, demand that theHome Secretary (Theresa May) that she stops his deportation and urge Mits MP(Emily Thornberry, Islington South).

Yours sincerely,

Mits Home Office reference: J1162567

Home Secretary, Theresa May: mayt@parliament.uk or fax 0118 934 5288.

For Emily Thornberry MP: THORNBERRYE@parliament.uk .

Please copy to mail@movementforjustice.org.uk