Family in exile makes Salt Lake home

PROVO — Imagine your father waking you up in the middle of the night, telling you to pack only three days of clothing and one pair of shoes.

There is then a quick family meeting during which your father goes over the game plan: a speedy trip to the airport to leave the country and if he is killed on the way, then you, your mother and two siblings are to go on without him.

Ayesha Liaqat, now 18 and a student at the University of Utah, remembers Sept. 19, 2006, like it was yesterday. It was the day her family fled Pakistan to seek asylum in America.

"We left everything behind. Photos, everything that is special to us," Liaqat said. "We didn't know when — or if — we would come back. I don't think you can imagine it."

She spoke tearfully in a personal interview with the Deseret News following a speech by her father, former Pakistani Judge Chaudhry Ali. Ali spoke at Brigham Young University's David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies on Wednesday.

Ali explained during his speech how his life, as well as his family's, was in danger amid political turmoil in Pakistan. The government launched an assault on judges and attorneys who may not have agreed with president Pervez Musharraf. Ali was a moving target.

Ali says of the recent political events in Pakistan, "Democracy is the only solution."

And for Ali and his family, the only option was exile, he said.

Today, many of the judges who stayed behind are in jail or under house arrest, he said.

Recounting his family's departure in the middle of the night, Ali said he left with his 15-year-old son, two daughters ages 10 and 17, and wife, Alia.

His 10-year-old daughter begged to take her favorite books and also poems she had written on the computer. "My answer was, 'No. We don't have the time."' Ali said.

He then gathered his family around him and discussed options if he was killed, Ali said, stopping his speech, as he was overcome with emotion.

His daughter, Liaqat, who was 17 at the time, recalls feeling bewildered. Her father had kept his children sheltered from knowing about the death threats and other political chaos.

"When you're younger, you don't understand," she said.