#WeAreAllMuhammad: Help with my living costs

We are friends and supporters of Muhammad Rauf Waris, a postgraduate student at the University of Stirling who was a victim of a surprise immigration raid earlier this summer on 15 June 2023. Fifteen immigration police intimidated and entrapped Muhammad forcing him to state that he had worked more than the allotted 20 hours per week that international students are legally allowed to work. When Muhammad refused to be intimidated, immigration police detained him and he was sent to Dungavel Immigration Removal Centre (IRC).

Muhammad has not committed any infractions to his immigration status and has always worked within the 20 hours as permitted by his Tier 4 visa.

At Dungavel IRC, Muhammad was forced to spend seventy days in detention. Dungavel IRC first opened during a Labour government in 2001 and has a long, and sordid history of abuse, including deaths in custody, best exemplified by the death of Mr Xi Biao Huang in 2017, in addition to child migrants being held in custody.

Against this stark and bleak backdrop, a member of the University of Stirling community experienced the full inhumanity of the immigration detention system, and the carceral violence that takes place inside the many IRCs dotted all over the UK. These carceral policies are not specific to one political party, but part of the larger historical hostile environment policy towards all kinds of migrants and asylum seekers which goes back to the 1905 Aliens Act right to the present National and Borders Bill 2022.

Despite Muhammad being released from Dungavel IRC on 23 August 2023, the experience he had in a detention centre where people have been subjected to abuse and death, has caused him to develop anxiety and depression.

While we are glad that the University of Stirling has allowed Muhammad to continue with his degree programme, we are nonetheless concerned that support has been slow and not forthcoming. Chiefly, we were surprised to learn that Muhammad has been denied a Student Assistance Fund. Because of his on-going case with the Home Office, Muhammad cannot partake in part-time work. In order to finish his studies he needs urgent funds to sustain himself.

Muhammad has the support of MP Alyn Smith and many from the University of Stirling community and beyond. For Muhammad, finishing his degree is his, “priority, goal and ambition.”

We are organising this fundraiser to help pay for Muhammad’s maintenance for this year so that he can (a) continue and finish his studies at the University of Stirling and (b) to sustain his fight against the Home Office to clear his name.

Any amount that you can donate is much appreciated at this time.

Thank you!

Sign the #WeAreAllMuhammad statement:

https://rb.gy/ekan8

Media pieces on Muhammad's case:

1. Robertson, Adam. My family is suffering': Home Office detain Stirling student 'despite valid visa, The Herald, 12 August 2023: https://uk.sports.yahoo.com/news/family-suffering-home-office-detain-082347057.html

2. Whyte, AJ. Stirling Uni student suffering ‘mental torture’ in detention centre, Brig Newspaper, 17 August 2023, https://brignews.com/2023/08/17/stirling-uni-student-suffering-mental-torture-in-detention-centre/

3. Walker, James. Detained Stirling University student's case is part of ‘wider problem’, The Herald, 23 August 2023, https://www.thenational.scot/news/23743283.detained-stirling-university-students-case-part-wider-problem/

4.“https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/local-news/stirling-university-urged-increase-support-31609074.” Stuart McFarlane, The Daily Record, 6 December 2023.

5. “https://brignews.com/2023/12/04/stirling-uni-fails-to-respond-to-letter-of-support-for-migrant-student/” AJ Whyle, The Brig: University of Stirling Student’s Newspaper, 4 December 2023.

6. “https://www.thenational.scot/news/23954014.stirling-university-accused-mistreating-student-detained-home-office/.” Ross Hunter, The National, 28 November 2023.