Better to die than to return to Pakistan- feels failed Refugee

Roohi Tabassum arrived in Canada as a refugee from Pakistan almost eight years ago with nothing except herself.

After she arrived here, the 44-year old has built her life in Canada. She earns money by hair-cutting in a salon and also owns a house in Mississauga. Now, Canada is her home.

But the end of this month might bring with itself the end of life of Tabassum in Canada, which she worked really hard to build. She unsuccessfully claimed refugee status and now faces deportation order to Pakistan which she says will be nothing less than a death sentence.

Tabassum said that her husband, Faisal Javed, who lives in Dubai, has written her threatening letters stating that by working in a salon and touching hair of men and women, she has dishonored him.

She said that one day her friend’s husband answered her phone when her husband called from Dubai, and from that day her husband has started suspecting that she has a boyfriend.

The woman said in an interview with tears filled in her eyes that she will certainly be killed after she goes back, and even some of her relatives will be in trouble. She said that she does not want to go to Pakistan as she feels extremely comfortable in the diverse society of Canada where she feels very good, religiously as well as socially.

Tabassum said that she hasn’t had any contact with her husband since 2007 and any attempts to contact him have been futile. Though she showed some letters allegedly from Javed and submitted the same to Citizenship and Immigration Canada, none of her allegations have been proved till now.

On of the letters from 2007 stated that nobody in Pakistan is in favor of her and if she is there, her husband allegedly wrote that he would kill her.

Tabassum said that she and her husband ran away from Pakistan after the two of them were targeted by Sipah-e-Sahaba, a sectarian organization which was declared a terrorist organization in January 2002 by Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s president at that time.

She managed to get into Canada but her husband was unable to make it to this country, she said.

She filed an application claiming refugee status in Canada but her claim was rejected. Following this, she filed a permanent resident application on humanitarian and compassionate grounds but with no success. Now she faces a deportation order to Pakistan.