Members of the campaign donated a total of £785 for the family of Shiraz Pir, the young man from Afghanistan who hanged himself in May. Iftekhar Ahmed, of Easton Mosque, has forwarded the money, together with the donations of the local Muslim community, to Shiraz's parents in the northwest Pakistan town of Mordan. We would like to thank contributors to the appeal. We sent a number of personal messages of condolence that campaign-members had sent in by post and email, and this letter from the campaign as a whole:

To the parents of Shiraz Pir,
We heard of Shiraz's death with great sadness and dismay. It is such a terrible loss. We want you to know that there are many people here in Bristol and in England who were shocked to hear about his death, and we feel ashamed that our country has failed him and you, by allowing him to die this way. We are thinking of you and wish you well. Please accept the money we have collected as a gesture of our friendship, sympathy and solidarity. Our very best wishes to you and all your family.

Shiraz was 25. He arrived in Bristol about 18 months ago with a group of other young Afghanis. He seemed an obvious candidate for asylum as he had lost many family members to war and political violence. He himself had been shot through the legs by the Taliban, and had horrific scars to prove it. About 6 months ago his friends were awarded refugee status, but Shiraz's application was unaccountably refused. His friends, no longer asylum seekers, had to move on to other accommodation; alone in the asylum hostel Shiraz sank into despair. He hanged himself in his room overlooking the traffic lights on Hotwells Road on Friday 4th May. He survived for a few days in the Bristol Royal Infirmary, on life-support, but died the following Tuesday.

He left a note, containing a request for his body to be returned to his parents if possible, and a poem in Pashtun, which says:

A statue is only a statue, even if it is made of gold.
Give me a lamp, with which to find human beings.

After the tragedy Mr Eftekhar Ahmed (a member of the mosque - on the left in the picture) managed to trace his parents, and broke the news to them. He is underwriting the cost of returning Shiraz's body to them, on behalf of the Muslim community. Bristol Defend the Asylum Seekers Campaign has promised to help in the fund-raising effort.

Shiraz's story will take some piecing together, but we are determined that it will be told, and a memorial meeting will be held in the next few weeks, to do this.

Suicide and suicide-attempts are common but under-reported features of asylum-seeker existence in Britain today. Our asylum regime is indeed 'tough' -- it might have been designed to destroy asylum-seekers' mental and emotional health. They live on a mere 70% of income support, in constant anxiety as to their fate, and debarred from working. For Shiraz, this last was possibly the hardest to bear. From a rural community, where work and life were inseparable; used to being active and busy, he found the enforced idleness, and the loneliness, utterly unbearable.

Shiraz Pir's family have now lost almost everything and been crushed almost beyond belief. They used their last resources to get him to safety in Britain, presumably in the backs of trucks, through dangerous border crossings. He returns from Britain by air, in a coffin. No dramatist could have devised a more bitter ending. We feel that the least we can do is help the Muslim community to pay for Shiraz's return to his parents. We would like to raise £500 at least. If you would like to donate, send a cheque made out to "Bristol Defend Asylum Seekers" to the Shiraz Pir Appeal, Bristol Defend Asylum Seekers Campaign, Box 4 1, Greenleaf Books, 82 Colston Street, Bristol BSI 5BB

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