Rt Hon Theresa May MP
Home Secretary
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF
Raja Bachir Khouja Home Office Ref K1684774/003
Mahmoud Mohammed Alhassan Home Office Ref K1684774
Dear Ms May,
I am writing to express my concern about the imminent forced removal of Raja Khouja and her husband Mahmoud Alhassan to Saudi Arabia on Thursday 25th June, and to ask you to stop this removal from taking place.
Raja (aged 56) is a Syrian national and member of the Syrian Republican Party. She is married to Saudi national Mahmoud Alhassan (aged 67). They came to the UK on holiday in 2010 with a return ticket to Damascus but were unable to return to Syria as they intended, due to the revolution.
In Syria, Raja was involved in underground activism against the regime, and in human rights activism on the internet focused on the wider Arab world. She wrote many times about her views on the denial of women’s rights in Saudi Arabia. As a result of her campaigning, the Saudi Mutawa has denounced her guilty of ‘apostasy’ and she has received email and phone call threats of death, imprisonment and mutilation including for ‘the opposite limbs to be cut off the body' were she ever to go to Saudi Arabia.
Raja has documented evidence of the threats, including several of the email threats on her laptop which she brought to the UK. She has the paper from the Mutawa denouncing her and again making threats against her. In addition her lawyer from Damascus (now herself a refugee in France) has provided evidence that she saw the threatening emails in Damascus when Raja showed them to her.
On the advice of a lawyer they sent their passports to the Home Office with an application to extend the visas that had expired because the situation in Syria had made it impossible for them to return. However the Home Office held on to the passports for month after month and the passports have now expired. Consequently, Raja and Mahmoud had no alternative but to claim asylum in 2013.
The claim was initially refused, despite the evidence, and on the 5th June they were detained. Because Raja is married to a Saudi national and holds a Saudi passport, a removal direction has been given to Saudi Arabia. Raja has never lived in Saudi Arabia and the Home Office would be sending her there against her will.
If she is deported to Saudi Arabia, Raja will be in severe danger from the Mutawa and Mahmoud will also be in danger because of his support for her.
I earnestly request that you give the circumstances surrounding Raja and Mahmoud’s case close examination. A lawyer is in the process of submitting an oral judicial review of the refusal of their asylum claim; therefore I ask that the removal direction is halted to allow this review to take place.
Yours sincerely,
[Your name]
[Your address]
[Date]