Karachi born, Pakistani student and climate change activist Zain Haq is facing deportation from Canada in the new year. He says his climate-change activism was influenced by deadly flooding and heat waves in the region when he was young. His primary concern is food security.
Zain Haq is a 21-year-old dedicated climate activist who has been arrested over ten times in connection with climate-change-related civil resistance activities in Canada. In February 2022, he was jailed for two weeks for criminal contempt of court for allegedly breaching a court injunction regarding the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion project. He also co-founded Save Old Growth, an environmental civil disobedience campaign aiming to halt all old-growth logging in British Columbia, Canada.
Due to his previous arrests and imprisonment, he was detained for two days by Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) and is facing deportation from Canada. He is currently adhering to several conditions imposed on him by federal authorities.
“I am being sentenced on the 9th of February. I have been spending the past few months studying the history of social change and what we can learn from that today, to tackle the emergency that we face,” says Haq.
“I am currently applying for a Humanitarian and Compassionate Application, this is my final attempt to persuade Canada to let me stay in the country on compassionate ground, if this doesn’t work then we have no other avenue left.” he says.
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