This is more than a man’s story. This is a chance to save a man’s life and end the shameful refugee deal between the EU and Turkey. We need you to make it possible.
Shabbir is 40 years old, an electrical engineer by trade. He is married and has two small kids. Shabbir lived in a town in Pakistan, where he ran a car rental business. One day last December 2015, a local group of Islamic extremists attacked Shabbir’s neighbour, a Christian. Shabbir came to his defence. And this simple act changed Shabbir’s life irrevocably.
For helping a Christian, he was labelled a heretic and forced to flee his town. Several members of his family and close circle have now been murdered by the extremists. His wife and children have gone into hiding. Today, after a horrific journey on which his father also perished, Shabbir lives in a state of limbo in Lesvos, Greece, where he has been since March 2016. He is now at risk of being deported under the terms of the EU-Turkey deal. If Shabbir returns home, the extremists will almost certainly try to kill him.
A team of volunteers in Spain and Greece, headed by the eminent Spanish former anti-corruption prosecutor Carlos Jiménez Villarejo, is working to save Shabbir. On November 29, 2016, they filed a legal action to the European Court of Justice, annul the EU-Turkey Agreement and prevent Shabbir and thousands of others from being deported. If this case is successful, it will do much more than save a man’s life: it could shatter the EU-Turkey deal once and for all.
Sign this petition and support Shabbir’s case. Help us save Shabbir and end this disgraceful deal.
On March 2016, the controversial EU-Turkey deal came into effect. It set out that any “new irregular migrants” – a euphemism for refugees and asylum-seekers – arriving in Greece from this date onwards would be returned to Turkey. This is a disgraceful deal that sends a frightful message to the rest of the world: that men, women and children who managed to survive a perilous journey and the horrors of war, persecution and extraordinary vulnerability, are not welcome in Europe.
It doesn’t have to be this way. As DiEM25 we are standing behind a unique legal action that could blow this deal up, potentially improving the lives of millions of people seeking to come to Europe in desperate need.
Sign this petition and join us. Together we can stop this shameful deal.
More information on what you can do to #StopTheDeal is here.
