Mohammad Ashraf Siddiqui

Born in 1969, Mohammad Ashraf Siddiqui is a former member of Pakistan's Mohajir Quomi Movement. He was subsequently denied refugee status in Canada on the basis of his membership in the group which immigration officials classified as "terrorist", prompting cries of disparity since other members of the group had been allowed in with findings that the group had no association to terrorism.[1]

Life

Following the 1990 split of the political group into separate MQM-A and MQM-H factions, Siddiqui sided with the MQM-A subgroup. Three years later, during the Pakistan general election, he was kidnapped by the rival faction and held for five days as a prisoner.[1]

When the MQM-H faction began extorting 3000R monthly from Siddiqui, and later sought to increase the amount, he fled to Canada in 1994. Five years later, after marrying a Canadian woman, he was initially granted refugee status. However, when he applied for an exemption to immigrant visas, the Immigration and Refugee Board took note of his past membership in MQM and suggested it had terrorist connections.[1]

Legal battle

In January 2007, Federal Court judge Michael L. Phelan ruled that it was patently unreasonable for the IRB to have suggested that the MQM was a terrorist organisation in Siddiqui's case, when they had offered the opposite opinion in the earlier case.[2]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Humphreys, Adrian. National Post, One official's refugee is another's terrorist, January 17, 2007
  2. ↑ Docket: IMM-2736-06, Reasons for Judgment and Judgment, January 3, 2007


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