Paul Toner claims victory: Ali Choudhry to stay
Paul Toner, the man who started the CommunityRun campaign just sent the following letter to his 140,000 supporters:
With the support of 140,000 people around the world, I just won my campaign on CommunityRun to stop the deportation of Ali Choudhry and give Ali and his partner Matt their lives back.
Last Friday, Ali and Matt were facing an uncertain future. I believe that Ali is in a committed, long-term relationship with an Australian man, but he faced the terrifying possibility of being deported to Pakistan – a country where he has never lived as an adult, where he can’t read or write the language and a country where homosexuality is punishable as a criminal offence.
I could never have imagined how big this campaign would get when I started it just six days ago. My wife heard about Ali and Matt’s story on the radio driving to work and once she told me about it, we both agreed we should do something. I believe that people deserve a chance to be happy, but it seemed to me like Ali and Matt weren’t getting a fair go.
I did a bit of research online about Ali and Matt’s story and ended up starting a petition on CommunityRun. I posted it on my Facebook wall and thought if it went well, the petition might get a few hundred signatures.
But in just six days this little petition took on a life of it’s own and helped change Ali and Matt’s lives. Now the ABC has reported that the Department of Immigration have confirmed Ali’s bridging visa. With a bridging visa, Ali and Matt can stay together while they wait for the Migration Review Tribunal to hear Ali’s case.
This campaign was the biggest and fastest growing CommunityRun petition ever. Together, campaign supporters put pressure on the Minister with over 140,000 signatures, a public delivery to the Immigration Minister, tweets and emails to his office and loads of media stories. That pressure forced the Department to do what they had failed to for months: confirm a bridging visa for Ali allowing him to remain in Australia.
It still won’t be easy for Ali and Matt. On a bridging visa, Ali can’t work in Australia and the outcome of his appeal is still uncertain. But together we helped prevent Ali’s deportation and gave the couple a chance to be happy.
CommunityRun exists so that any GetUp member, like you, can start a campaign, just like I did, and change something in their street, their town or across the country. If you see something that isn’t fair or needs to change, you can change it. Through CommunityRun you can start a campaign, connect with people who feel the same way you do and take action together to change things for the better.
In the past, I’ve signed a CommunityRun petition to stand up for regional journalism and stop jobs being offshored from the Newcastle Herald, the local paper in the town where I grew up. I also signed a petition for a successful campaign to save the Barrett Adolescent Centre. That campaign locked in State government funding for a critical adolescent mental health facility that provides support to hundreds of vulnerable teenagers each year in my local area. Every day, people are using CommunityRun to create fantastic campaigns.
So what campaign will you run?
Thanks a lot,
Paul Toner.
Dear Ken
It is so sad to read your selfish and ignorant words!!
The point is that the immigration rules and legal specifications are made not just for people to follow but more importantly to help and support the happiness of citizens!!
I am glad you and your friends did great and got your visas as you followed the rules and dotted your i’s! Which is great and I am happy for you! It’s shocking to hear the ignorance in your thought and high level of immaturity!
This is the problem with our country: just because there have been others who were not given visas and deported as they did not follow the legal rules does not mean that we should stay blind and do nothing to change the rule so it is more humane and compassionate
Yes there are laws but they were created so that people follow it!!
But there is a reason why the applications are not dealt with by machines and robots!!!
Humans, people like you and me accept or reject cases for visas, which means they should not just follow the letter of the law but think and process information with their hearts and mind so that the “spirit” of the law is upheld and to be compassionate and consider extenuating circumstances
And this is also a gay rights issue because if these two people were heterosexual then it would be relatively easier regarding paperwork
But mostly it is the issue of ignorance and pride in not seeing that this decision to not give Ali his visa was wrong and correct the injustice
The central issue should not just be that rules must be followed but there should be an overhaul of this mechanised role played by case officers who focus on just the letter and not spirit of the law!! These two people are in an honest relationship and love each other and are committed and want to be together, and Ali is a strong contributor in his community that is the most important point! Complicated Legal rules are made to weed out the dishonest people who fake a relationship to stay in the country but the sad part about this case is that the same legal rules have broken the spirit of honesty that the law was framed to support! Instead of realising that a grave injustice has been done and use this case to show the shortcomings of law resulting in persecution of innocents, ignorant people like you call for making the situation worse by supporting further persecution of the victim who has suffered enough by saying: I had it tough, so must he!! Instead of seeing that neither of you, your friends or Ali must or should have been given such a hard time in the first place!! I do understand rules help eliminate the dishonest people but in exceptional circumstances where there was a grave injustice done by not looking at the personal and human factors people like you and me should use this opportunity to drive change for the better for a more open and compassionate laws where it’s not just about the clauses and sub points but the human elements. Sure Ali made mistakes but so did the case worker at immigration!!
Also if you read the US and Canadian Immigration laws it is up to the parents to file for citizenship and if the time passes then you can’t go back and reapply!
The spirit of the law is a citizen has rights and can love and marry foreigner to let him stay in the country- that is the spirit and this was not followed!!
I’m not getting a lot of this – Raised in America and not an American? Where is his family? If he has come from America, why the hell would he be sent to Pakistan? Why has no one associated with this issue addressed these facts in all the information spilling out? The questions have been asked and so far, suitably avoided by those seeking to claim discrimination by the Australian Government.
As for the Dept Immigration – LEAVE THEM ALONE! I was still legally married when I brought my same sex partner into the country on an interdependency visa and we had next to no issues even though it was a particularly difficult case to explain. They were always fair, but we played by the rules. We managed to read the website and work it out for ourselves. No lawyers. Standard cost. Clear as mud.
It is therefore painfully clear to me that all of the people making negative comments about the rights of same sex people and immigration in Australia, especially Paul Toner, have never been through immigration themselves.
If you people had been through immigration then you would know that there are very clear rules written down and the Government sticks to them like glue. While they are busy sticking, they are constantly telling you they are sticking. It should have come as no surprise to Ali and Matt when they became unstuck in the web they wove. This whole fiasco reeks of people who did not follow the rules. Sure, you can say now that they have screwed it up, give them a break, but how is that fair to all the other people who do the right thing? It’s NOT. It’s also not fair because the truth is being twisted to suit the players and they are not being completely honest with the general public about what really happened. Ie., they did not follow the rules. Claiming discrimination due to sexuality is an affront to every successful same sex interdependency visa holder in the country.
I know that they haven’t been honest, but obviously I don’t know what really happened and I’m not going to assume. I can say however, that I now belong to a large foreign community (due to my partner) with many different stories of immigration at many different levels. All of them successful because they read and followed the rules of the Australian Dept Immigration.
It is a travesty that the gay community has got involved in this drama claiming discrimination, and are being led around by the nose with large doses of misinformation from next to no research. Embarrassing even. Any person with a brain can go to the Dept Immigration website and read the rules. Educate yourselves before making comments. If you follow those rules, no matter your colour, sexuality, marital status etc etc … no one is discriminated against. And more blah about marriage equality making a difference?? Heterosexual people have to jump through the same hoops! If you do not follow the rules, you will not get in.
To all you disbelievers, if anything, I actually felt that the Dept of Immigration treated us better because we were gay. They were not always polite and rarely friendly, but they did their job and played no favourites. They are just doing their job under the legislation they have been given. Leave them alone and get off the soapbox.
I was signatory #74.
I’m so happy for the boys that they’ve been given some kind of reprieve, even if only temporary.
Thanks for bringing everyone together, Paul.