A FORMER asylum seeker who fled Pakistan due to threats from extremists is being ordained as a Church of Scotland minister today.
Raheel Arif is being inducted into Denny Old Parish Church linked with Haggs Parish Church and will become its first full-time minister for five and a half years.
The 47-year-old said he was very excited about taking up this “wonderful and priceless ministry” in the Falkirk Council district.
Arif, his wife Humaira and their children, Rhea and Roshaan, fled to Scotland from Pakistan in September, 2011 after receiving death threats from extremists because of their faith.
At the time he was the vice-principal of a secondary school in Peshawar. Arif said conspirators tried to have him arrested for blasphemy. They were unsuccessful but a complaint led to him being demoted to his previous role as a biology teacher.
The family travelled to Grangemouth to visit his cousin Rev Aftab Gohar, minister of Abbotsgrange Parish Church, in the summer of 2011. But when they returned to Peshawar two months later it quickly became clear that his situation had escalated so they decided to return to Scotland and seek asylum.
Arif said: “We were living a good life in Peshawar. We had a nice home and my wife and I both had good jobs but extremists kept threatening us. It was a terrifying, horrible situation and I was very scared.
“At first the threats were only directed at me and I thought things would calm down in time. But when people came to my house and threatened my family I knew that we had to leave.”
The family applied for asylum the day they arrived in Glasgow and have since been granted indefinite leave to remain.
READ MORE: Scottish city has more asylum seekers than any other UK council area
Arif, who has a masters degree in botany and a bachelor’s degree in education, carried out his 15 month probation at Zetland Parish Church in Grangemouth.
“Since the time I preached as sole nominee, I, along with my family have been overwhelmed by the welcome and love,” he said Arif said he and his wife and son and daughter, who are aged 10 and 16 respectively, love Scotland and have applied for British citizenship. “It is a lovely country and it reminds me of my province in Pakistan because it is similar in terms of the landscape and the weather,” he added.
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