Equality for Ali Choudhry? 130,000 disagree
Image: Ali Choudhry and Matt Hynd (Photo credit: Kate Bailey)
AN online petition with over 130,000 signatures that calls for Immigration Minister Scott Morrison to grant Brisbane-based gay man Ali Choudhry a visa to remain in Australia has become one of the biggest and most successful community-run petitions in Australian history.
This week Choudhry was looking at a potential deportation to Pakistan, his country of birth, after his application for a visa through his de facto relationship with partner Matthew Hynd was rejected by the Immigration Department.
Choudhry has no memory of Pakistan and cannot read or write the local language, as he was raised in the USA before moving to Australia over four years ago.
CLICK HERE to read Ali Choudhry’s full story
Since the couple’s plight emerged over the holiday season, their story has struck a chord beyond Australia’s LGBTI community. It has fuelled the marriage equality debate, added to the Immigration Minister’s growing list of media headaches, and even went worldwide.
Although Choudhry and Hynd ran a successful crowdsourcing campaign that saw them gain enough funds to submit an appeal to the Migrations Review Tribunal, it wasn’t until a stranger they had never met started an online petition on the GetUp!-backed Community Run website.
Hailing from Ipswich, Paul Toner said he felt like he had to do something to help Choudhry and Hynd after he reflected on the happiness he had with his own wife.
CLICK HERE to read Paul Toner’s piece on why we should all care about Ali Choudhry
According to Getup!, Toner’s campaign, which started last Friday, became the biggest and fastest-growing petition Community Run has ever seen – bolstered by American gay celebrity and former Star Trek star George Takei sharing the link with his five million-plus Facebook fans on Monday, stating that the couple’s struggle was “a heartbreaking and important example of how marriage inequality in Australia is destroying lives and must end”.
The torrent of support following Takei’s post added 10,000 signatures to the petition in just 45 minutes and crashed Community Run’s servers momentarily.
On Tuesday, after gaining over 130,000 signatures within just four days, Toner was flown down to Sydney to personally deliver the petition (pictured above) to the Federal Government offices in Sydney.
“If he’s deported, there’s a real risk Ali could be imprisoned for life in Pakistan, where being openly gay carries a long jail sentence,” Toner said.
“Ali cannot understand why theirs is not considered a legitimate long-term partnership, and neither can I.”
There are two things going on here. One of them is that the government should not deport GLBTI people back to countries that could punish them. The other is that the Department should give due consideration to the special circumstances in this case.
The way some people carry on about this case and it only arising because there is a lack of marriage equality in Australia is really disingenuous. By saying that this is a breach of the highest of human rights because they can’t get married is wrong. For one reason or another Choudhry was not in Australia when he applied so he would have been denied a visa anyway. Let’s not see failures due to marriage inequality everywhere we look.
Marriage equality itself should be without criticism. We complain of the inflated, sensationalist, propagandistic arguments against marriage equality from religious extremists, shock jocks, columnists and politicians. Marriage equality is necessary in this country, however it can’t be at the expense of truth and of critical assessment. When presented with these cases we would do well to check their veracity, lest we confuse activism with sentimentality. We can’t fall back on the same techniques that our critics use to shut down the marriage equality debate, because otherwise, we are no different.
If he had been a Hetrosexual or a Caucasian then there wouldn’t even be a campaign as he would be granted a Visa… read the full story and then make your judgement people…
Even in countries where theres full marriage equality, its not guaranteed that you will end up staying permanently, how many australians abroad are applying for work visas and permanent residency and gets declined. He should be greatful of the period of time australia has allowed him to reside here. To me this whole situation doesnt sound 100 pc and I can imagine someone working in immigration feels iffy about it too.
Ok. Can we have some factual reporting here for a change?
I support marriage equality with all my heart but this case has nothing to do with equality. The criteria for assessing a same sex relationship is the same as for a hetro couple. And that’s the LAW.
So this couple did not get the answer they were looking for. So they start an online campaign? Based on lies guaranteed to tug at heartstrings.
Here is one fact. Ali was never going to be deported on his birthday. There is a review process for a reason and EVERYONE who applies for review is allowed to stay here while the review is being heard.
Unbelievable if this had been a Heterosexual or a Caucasian he would have been on the first plane out to Pakistan, this person has been in Australia for over 4 weeks ILLEGALLY send him packing straight away