Hazara campaigner threatened by terrorists,faces removal from UK

LONDON: The UK Home Office has told a leading Hazara Shia activist that he will be forcibly removed to Pakistan stressing that he will face no threat from the banned sectarian outfits who have issued threats to him, writes Murtaza Ali Shah.
Liaquat Ali Hazara, who runs Hazara United Movement (HUM), has worked at the forefront in Britain, highlighting the plight of Hazara Shias who have been killed mercilessly by sectarian terrorist groups in Quetta, Balochistan, while there has been little or no action against the perpetrators.
It was due to the efforts of campaigners like Liaquat Ali and many other Hazara campaigners that the UK parliament had debated the issue of Hazara massacre calling on the government of Pakistan to take steps to end the persecution of Hazaras.
Liaquat Ali Hazara has been told that he will be removed on the 21st of this month by a chartered flight from London Heathrow to Islamabad. He was detained on 18th July at the Morton Hall IRC, Lincoln, removal centre.
Campaigners say that Liaquat Ali will be targeted by the extremist terrorist groups who are aware about his work in Britain. On the day Liaquat Ali received his removal direction, terrorists killed five and injured dozens in Quetta just before Eid.
Campaigners say that Liaquat Ali has been keenly involved in political and human rights campaigns in the UK and will be at high risk upon return to that country.“I have always been on the forefront to raise voice for the underrepresented minorities of Pakistan, including the Hazaras, by organising sit-in protests, demonstrations and holding conferences in the House of Lords. I have been threatened by the TTP, SSP and LEJ.
I also received e-threats to my blog from LeJ which were traced to have been generated from Karachi, Pakistan. All the details have already been provided to the Home Office but the officials are clearly oblivious to the facts surrounding Hazara Shias.”
“My poor parents and wife live under continual threat and due to my political and human rights activities, they have also contained their movements within the locality. There are many who have become the targets of suicide bombings, targeted attacks and mass killings.”
Liaquat Ali Hazara has been active in the UK since 2009 when the situation started getting worse in Quetta. He has helped organise many sit-in protests, static demonstrations and conferences against the killings of Shias, particularly the conference organised in the House of Lords in April 2013, which helped highlight the issue of Hazara at the UN’s Human Rights Counsel.
An expert report presented to the Home Office said that Liaquat Ali would be targeted by the extremist groups, which was to be accepted as fresh claim under Paragraph 353c of the Immigration Rules but on 16th July, the Home Office rejected this report without the right of appeal and detained Hazara.
Liaquat Ali Hazara said that “the Home Office has been in sheer violation of its own manual as well as flouting the standards of British Judicial System”.
He added: “The Home Office has so far turned a deaf ear to whatever plethora of objective evidence I have submitted, rejecting them. The Home Office wants to make a good example out of me so that the people who genuinely fear their lives should feel uncomfortable from seeking asylum here. I call on Theresa May, the home secretary, to look into my case. I will be tortured and killed by the terrorist groups.”A Home Office spokesperson said: “We do not comment on individual cases.”