Keep Azim in Oxford
I spoke at the Keep Azim in Oxford demo earlier today. For those of you who don’t know, Azim Ansari is a first-year Engineering student at St John’s College, Oxford. He and his brother Wali are refugees who fled Afghanistan four years ago and were grnated leave to remain. They learned English, Wali got a job and Azim studied fo A-levels. The Home Office has now decided that they have to return to Afghanistan, and they lost their appeal against deportation in January.
The rally today in Broad St was a wonderful show of solidarity for Azim, and I was proud to be invited to support his campaign to stay in Oxford. It goes without saying that all of us in the Oxford Labour party urge the Home Office to grant Azim and Wali the opportunity to stay in the UK. I think it’s also important to be clear that demonising asylum seekers and refugees isn’t an election tactic we’ll be using, and I hope that’s true for all the other candidates in OxWAb too.
For more information, go to Keep Azim in Oxford.
BBC Oxford also has a (rather scanty) report on the rally.
