Over 100 students write to Home Secretary asking him to take action

Over 100 students write to Home Secretary asking him to take action

On Thursday 27 June, a group of the international students whose lives were torn apart by the Home Office in 2014 when they were wrongly accused of cheating on an English test delivered a letter by hand to the Home Secretary, asking him to make the statement that he has been promising. (See more photos below.)

More than 100 of the students directly affected had signed the letter. They and thousands of others have spent the last five years trying to clear their names - an almost impossible task in the courts - and many have now lost hope. This letter is a personal plea to the Home Secretary to give his statement and tell them what their futures will be.

The students were joined at the Home Office by Stephen Timms MP, a long-time supporter of the students and their fight for justice, and the letter was received by a member of the Home Secretary's staff. 

The letter was also sent to the Home Secretary by post and email. (See a PDF of the letter here.)

Here's what the students wrote:

Dear Home Secretary Sajid Javid,

We are some of the tens of thousands of international students unjustly robbed of our visas and our rights by the Home Office in 2014 after we were accused of cheating on an English test. We are innocent but the government gave us no real way to defend ourselves, so we’ve been fighting for five years just to clear our names.

The Department you lead ruined our lives and stole our futures. It branded us as frauds, forcing us to bear a lifelong mark of shame, while never presenting any evidence at all against most of us.

Many of us are destitute, barely able to live from day to day. Many of us are on medication for stress or depression. Many of us have been rejected by our families, who are shamed by the allegation of cheating. Some of us have tried to kill ourselves.

Home Secretary, you have said you are sympathetic. Twice in the last three months we have been promised a statement from you about the Government’s next steps, but you have chosen to keep silent. You were given a chance to defend your Department at the recent APPG hearings on this issue, but you did not come.

Home Secretary, you are our last hope and we need to hear from you. Please tell us what our futures will be. It is within your power to put this right.

Best wishes,

Imrose Mustafi

Mohammad Mohibullah

Md Solayman Bhuyan

Noman basher

Qadir Ali

Syed Shah

Rabi Aryal

Fatema Chowdhury

Asif khan

Sumon Ahmed

Munir Ahmad

Roni Mandal

Mohammed Mazharuddin Hussain

Muhammed Shahadat Hussain Murad

Abdullah Al Khaled

Muhammad Rizwan

Muhammad Arsalan Umar

MD Janibush Shams Piyas

Naveed Khan

Ghulam Shabbir

Sheikh Shariful Amin

Md Kamal Hossain

Muhammad Umar

Sohrab Mahmud

Muhammad Hassan Shahzad

Asiya Gul Iram

M Rashedul Hoque

Dilip Halder

Chetan Bhavsar

Jibon Kumar Ghosh

Ahmer Mujtaba Tabassum

Masum

Sadaf Javed Jarral

Raja Noman Hussain

Meer Wais Islam

Wahidur Rahman

Robel Miah

Mohammad Sowkat Islam

Jolly Nath

Tanvir Ahmed

Dipankar

Shazidur

Kiran Uprety

Md Mosiur Rahman

MD Mazhrul Islam

Tuton Bhowmick

Mehedi Hasan

Mohammad Haque

Md Mojibur Rahman

Ubaid ur Rahman

Syed Waqar Hussain

Kamrudduha Rajib

Md Solayman Bhuyan

Kishor Khatiwada

Mudabbir Ali Khaja

Ahmed Waqas

Islamul Chowdhury

Waqas Jawaid

MD Wahidul Karim

S Shah

Syed Ahsan Raza Rizvi

Geeta Rani

Azhar Shahzad

Md Hossain

Ranjit Kaur

Saima Saleem

S M Ashiqur Rahman

Abdullah Al Khaled

Farzana Boby

Al Amin

Jalil Mollik

Sheikh Rasel

Ejaj Ahamed Beig

Md Jewel Ahammad

Muhammad Hanan Naqvi

Habibullah Chowdhury

Maruf Ahmed

Abu Gazi

Khaled Ahmed

Muhammad Zakria

Md Abdur Rahman

Bibi Rahima

Chowdhury

Vikram Kumar

Zul Afros Mozumder

Mahanaz Islam

Noor A Alam

Attique Ur Rehman

Md Forhaduzzaman

Md Rakib Ahamed

Om Bahadur Upreti

Muhammad Mohsin Raza

Mitangi Shaileshkumar Patel

Mohsin Ali

Imran Khan

Abdus Salam

Muhammad Usman

Sajjad

Faisal Iftekhar

Dilshad Shakoor

Md Lutfur Rahman

Muhammad Shebul

Adeel Chaudhry

Ahmed

Rameez Kadir

Abdul Ilyas Mohammad

Tejas Soni

Mahsa Saderyoon

Rashel Hossain

Oliur Hossain

Abdul Jaweed Mohammed

Pronob Maitra