We need your help to support Shirajul Islam, who is seeking asylum and facing enforced return to Bangladesh, where there is an arrest warrant awaiting him.

Shirajul claimed asylum in 2007 on the grounds that he is in danger of persecution and death in Bangladesh, but his claims to date have been rejected. We need to raise £800 to pay the legal costs for a fresh asylum claim to the Home Office.

As a student in Sylhet, Shirajul was an active member of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party. He was local leader of the Chattra Dal, the student wing of the BNP, and came to the notice of opposition Awami League activists. Nationally, the Awami League is in power now. A number of politicians and activists from other parties have been convicted of serious crimes and imprisoned or executed in the last few years. On May 17th 2017 23 men were sentenced to death for the murder in 2002 of 4 Awami league activists. Shirajul's mentor, Ilias Ali, former MP and Finance Minister, disappeared in Dhaka in mysterious and never-explained circumstances, having advised Shirajul to seek protection in the UK.

The warrant for Shirajul's arrest, dated July 2014 (when he was living in the UK and had surrendered his passport to the Home Office), accuses him and others of attacking the local secretary of the Awami League with intent to murder. He was injured but survived. This is a serious charge and there is no guarantee that in the present political climate he would be successfully defended. A copy of this arrest warrant was submitted to the Home Office decision maker, who refused to believe that it was genuine, although a Bangladesh lawyer has confirmed to us that the Notary Public who signed the warrant is known to him. The Home Office has a culture of disbelief and decisions are often wrong and overturned at appeal. No appeal has been allowed in Shirajul's case.

Two recent attacks on Shirajul's family home in Sylhet, where items were stolen and broken, have been reported in the local newspaper but the cutting sent to the Home Office was also disbelieved. Verbal death threats (impossible to prove) make us convinced that Shirajul would be in danger if he were returned.

Former MEP, Phil Bennion, who knows the country well, is helping to try to prove the authenticity of the evidence which has been presented, but we now need your help to make a fresh claim.