Keep the Khans - help stop four students of Coláiste Éamann Rís (Cork City) being deported
Keep the Khans - help stop four students of Coláiste Éamann Rís (Cork City) being deported
Why this petition matters
Coláiste Éamann Rís Cork City, The Edmund Rice Schools Trust and UCC campaign to stop removal of four students
Four Cork Students Hamza, Zubair, Umair and Mutjuba Khan face deportation from Ireland having been refused international protection in this country. The four brothers, and their parents and sister have been living in direct provision since arriving in Ireland in 2017.
Zubair, a fifth year student, Umair, a Transition year student and Mutjuba, a second year student are studying at Coláiste Éamann Rís Cork City. Their older brother, Hamza, is a past pupil, who completed his Leaving Certificate in 2019. Hamza was awarded the UCC sanctuary scholarship and was enrolled in first year computer science in September 2019.
Hamza’s progression to UCC demonstrates this family’s strong academic focus – they are hard workers, who are interested in study and want to better themselves thereby becoming fully functional, independent and contributing members of Irish society. This move will have catastrophic consequences for their education and emotional wellbeing.
The family’s father Mubeen, fled to Saudi Arabia from Pakistan to escape persecution in 1982. His wife Hina Mubeen is also from Pakistan but their daughter Shazadi and sons Hamza, Zubair, Umair and Mutjuba were born in Saudi Arabia. The family continued to live happily in Saudi Arabia until their lives were changed by the death of King Abdullah in 2015. The new king, King Salman and his son Prince Muhammad Bin Salman, introduced new laws that favoured Saudi citizens. Under these new laws, each family member had to pay taxes that were set to increase by 100% each year after. To pay this the children had to drop out of school to get jobs. Another law introduced in 2017, resulted in Mubeen losing his job in a drapers – unable to pay their taxes the family faced deportation to Pakistan which they had already fled from originally. As a result the family were forced to leave Saudi Arabia, arriving in Ireland through England. As they first arrived to Europe through England, they are to be deported back to the United Kingdom, even though they have never lived there.
Hamza will lose his scholarship and place in third level education, while the three brothers attending secondary school will be moved to an education system totally unfamiliar to them, despite having already commenced and completed elements of our Junior and Senior Cycle curriculums.
The campaign to keep the Khans is supported by UCC, and the trust body of Coláiste Éamann Rís Cork City, the Edmund Rice Schools Trust, that represents 96 schools nationwide.
