Hove students are holding a vigil today to support one of their classmates who is being threatened with deportation.
Ann Bashir, 16, and her sister and mother are appealing the rejection of their asylum claim, which they made after fleeing Sudan in 2020.
She came to Brighton to live with her aunt, who is here legally, and has been attending Cardinal Newman ever since – even after they were sent to live in Tower Hamlets.
The government has ruled their fear of persecution is not “well-founded” enough – even though fellow students have been killed at anti-government demonstrations she attended.
Her father has also been arrested, and the family have not been able to contact him since.
After the school learnt of Ann’s situation in the last weeks, students have rallied round and started a petition and organised letter-writing campaign.
The petition has already been signed by more than 3,500 people.
Taking their lead from the peaceful protests Ann and her family joined in Sudan, they are today holding a vigil in the school chapel.
The schools’ pastoral lead Georgia Neale: “The support in school has been overwhelming.
The house captains have been spearheading this. They’ve led assemblies, spoken to students and are sending emails to local government and MPs. They’ve split themselves into give groups to tackle different areas and come back every day to discuss what they have done.
The feeling in the school has been one of absolute support. People are respecting Anna’s privacy. She can just continue her everyday studies she doesn’t want to miss any lessons.
Everyone is just so impacted by this because we see it on the news and the kids see it on Instagram and Tik Tok that these things are happening and now it’s happening to someone in their community and they’re really affected by that.
“The children are so angry for her. They want to march and scream from the rooftops. Part of our role as student leaders is to take that and focus all that anger in a constructive, positive way.”
She said Ann had only told her about the threat of deportation last week, even though her family’s asylum application had been rejected in November.
The family are appealing, and hope their case will be heard in the spring. Meanwhile her sister, who went to Varndean College, is now studying pharmacy at the University of Brighton and Anna is preparing for her GCSEs at Cardinal Newman, with a longer-term ambition to become a psychotherapist, working with children and young people who have experienced trauma.
Ms Neale said: “They have been fighting this themselves for three years. They didn’t speak to anyone within the school until recently.
“We have freedom of speech and we can stand up and say things that we don’t think are right. They couldn’t do that in Sudan.
“It’s so clear that there’s a risk to their wellbeing. The Home Office says it’s not classed as a high risk area even though students have been killed at protests that they were at.
“They would be going back as three women to somewhere with no gender equality rights. They won’t be accepted in their Coptic Christian community because they stood up to the government.”
