Justice First Case Study

Abdullah

Abdullah was a former member of Hizb-i-Islami, an Afghan political group opposed to the Taliban.

He and his brother were fighting for Hizb-i-Islami against the Taliban when his brother was killed. Abdullah was attacked on different occasions by the Taliban due to his involvement with Hizb-i-Islami and on one occasion he was shot twice in his stomach and in the groin.

He lived in a small remote village where the Taliban were powerful. There were no government representatives or security forces and there was no protection. The Americans were bombing his village. This bombing compounded with his fear of the Taliban resulted in him fleeing his home. He wanted his family to go with him but that was impossible, and his family believed that they would not be in danger once he had gone because it was him rather than them that the Taliban were targeting. In 2007 Abdullah entered the UK and claimed asylum. The Home Office and the Immigration Judge found that regardless of whom he was fighting for or against, he was not sufficiently in fear for his safety at that time in Afghanistan, which justified him fleeing the country.

Abdullah started to suffer from different health conditions and his health started to deteriorate.

It was accepted that he may well be suffering from different conditions, but it was not considered that this justifies him being permitted to remain in the United Kingdom. From 2010 until 2020 Abdullah submitted many representations to the Home Office, several of them prepared by JF caseworkers and some by other immigration solicitors. All were refused, and he was detained many times. While in detention JF staff had to liaise with various detention support groups to stop his removal. On many occasions, they managed to stop the removals, but he still faced the threat of removal on several occasions. Every time the removal had to be cancelled at the last minute. On one occasion, he was taken off the plane by ambulance and transported to the hospital with a suspected heart attack.

In June 2020 he approached Justice First again to help him to make further representations to the Home Office. It took Solafa a few months to gather the required information and new evidence to prepare the representations because it was during the lockdown. Finally, by November the representations were submitted to the Home Office. A year later Abdullah was granted five years humanitarian protection on the back of these representations. He is now making a family reunion application for his wife and daughters who fled to Pakistan years ago, to join him after 15 years of separation.