Mb (Olf and Mta – Risk)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Senior Immigration Judge P R Lane |
| Judgment Date | 29 March 2007 |
| Neutral Citation | [2007] UKAIT 30 |
| Court | Asylum and Immigration Tribunal |
| Date | 29 March 2007 |
[2007] UKAIT 30
Asylum and Immigration Tribunal
THE IMMIGRATION ACTS
SENIOR IMMIGRATION JUDGE Latter
SENIOR IMMIGRATION JUDGE P R Lane
Mrs J Holt
For the Appellant: Mr R. Toal, Counsel, instructed by the Brighton Housing Trust
For the Respondent: Mr G Saunders, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer
MB (OLF and MTA — risk) Ethiopia CG
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(1) As at February 2007, the situation in Ethiopia is such that, in general:-
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(a) Oromo Liberation Front members and sympathisers;
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(b) persons perceived to be OLF members or sympathisers; and
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(c) members of the Maccaa Tulema Association;
will, on return, be at real risk if they fall within the scope of paragraph (2) or (3) below.
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(2) OLF members and sympathisers and those specifically perceived by the authorities to be such members or sympathisers will in general be at real risk if they have been previously arrested or detained on suspicion of OLF involvement. So too will those who have a significant history, known to the authorities, of OLF membership or sympathy. Whether any such persons are to be excluded from recognition as refugees or from the grant of humanitarian protection by reason of armed activities may need to be addressed in particular cases.
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(3) Given the proscription of the MTA and the current state of tension on the part of the Ethiopian authorities, the Tribunal considers that MTA members will also be at real risk on return if they have previously been arrested or detained on suspicion of MTA membership and/or of OLF membership or are known or suspected of membership of the MTA. Despite the banning of the MTA, the Tribunal does not consider that the evidence is such as to show a real risk where the extent of the authorities' knowledge or suspicion about an individual relates to something less than membership of the MTA.
The appellant, a citizen of Ethiopia born on 12 December 1973, arrived in the United Kingdom with leave as a visitor on 20 June 1999. He claimed asylum on 14 July 1999. On 7 April 2004 the respondent refused to grant the appellant asylum and accordingly decided that he would not vary the appellant's leave to enter. The appellant appealed against that decision to an Adjudicator, Mr J Entwhistle, sitting at Hatton Cross, who, by a determination that followed a hearing on 11 August 2004, dismissed the appellant's appeal on both asylum and human rights grounds.
On 12 November 2004 permission was granted to the appellant to appeal to the Immigration Appeal Tribunal against the Adjudicator's determination. On 4 April 2005 that grant of permission had effect as if the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal (which came into being on that day) had been ordered to reconsider the determination.
The nature of the appellant's claim was as follows. He was of Oromo ethnicity. He was born and grew up in the area of Addis Ababa where, according to the appellant, the dominant culture was Amhara. As he grew up, the appellant became interested in his Oromo culture. He would read newspapers produced by supporters of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF). After university, he became a librarian with the Bako Agricultural Research Centre and was subsequently promoted to work at the headquarters of the Institute of Agricultural Research in Addis Ababa. In 1995 the appellant began work for Agri-Service, a non-governmental organisation, as a librarian, and in 1998 was promoted to be their Information Officer.
In early 1997, the appellant started to attend monthly meetings of an Oromo self-help organisation, commonly called the Maccaa Tulema Association (MTA). The appellant said that the MTA promoted the cultural, linguistic, historical and political rights of the Oromo people, as well as raising awareness of their human rights situation. The MTA was founded in 1962. The appellant formally joined it on 18 January 1998.
The appellant described himself as an active member of the MTA, albeit that he was not an office-holder of any sort. He paid his monthly subscriptions to the MTA and attended their monthly meetings in Addis Ababa, as well as attending other meetings held in connection with particular activities.
One of the tasks assigned to the appellant by the MTA was to help to organise Oromo youth. A number of special meetings regarding that issue were held. These were arranged by the organiser of the group, LG. The appellant said that he was second-in-command to Mr G in organising Oromo youth. This work involved raising awareness of the OLF's objectives and attempting to persuade young people not to join the Oromo People's Democratic Organisation (OPDO), an organisation which (according to the respondent's COI report of November 2006) is opposed to the OLF and represents the Oromo people within the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF).
The appellant asserted that one of his tasks was to gather information about the Oromo and the OLF and to share that information with other members of the MTA. As an information technology professional, the appellant accordingly started to access information on the internet for the MTA. In 1997, when the appellant started doing this, internet access in Ethiopia was very limited and the appellant was the only person in the MTA who had such access. The appellant would go into his office on Saturdays and Sundays and use his work computer in order to download and print off OLF material. At that time, the appellant claimed that this was the only way in which information about the OLF could be obtained for other members of the MTA. The Ethiopian Government was asserting that the OLF had been destroyed and no longer existed. As a result, the Oromo people were, the appellant claimed, hungry for information about the OLF.
The appellant said that his first problem with the Ethiopian authorities occurred in 1997, at a time when tension was high in Addis Ababa. The appellant was detained by the police in that city, taken to a police station and asked if he was a Somali.
In 1998, the appellant was asked by the Chairman of the Kebele in his area to join the OPDO and to be on the Woreda Council as a member of the OPDO. The appellant said that the OPDO was an organisation formed by the Government, which was not a genuine Oromo organisation and whose views were essentially the opposite of those of the OLF. All its members worked for the Government. The leaders were not even Oromo but Amhara, albeit that they spoke the Oromo language.
The appellant was unwilling to join the OPDO and did not attend any of their meetings. However, in order to maintain reasonable relations with the Kebele, the appellant undertook some desktop publishing for them.
In October 1998 the appellant was detained by persons whom he took to be plain-clothes police officers, who took him to Woreda police station, where the appellant was asked why he had not gone to the OPDO meetings. The appellant gave the reply that he had been busy, as he did not consider that he could give the true reason. Asked to admit that he was a member of the OLF, the appellant said that he was a member of the MTA. He did this because the MTA was a legal organisation and the appellant did not consider that he would face problems by admitting that he was a member of it. However, as soon as he had said this, one of the officers started to beat, kick and slap the appellant. He was held for three days at the police station before being transferred to Region 14 Police Commission in Addis Ababa, where he was held for six weeks. Although not ill-treated whilst he was there, the appellant was interrogated about his membership with the MTA. After six weeks, the appellant was released on bail. The appellant ascribed this release to the intervention of a friend, who worked as a member of the police force. Amongst the conditions attached to the appellant's bail were a requirement to inform the police each time the appellant left Addis Ababa and a requirement to attend court on a particular day in February 1999. The appellant attended court on the due day, when he was simply given another date on which to attend again, namely 23 June 1999. The appellant believed that the authorities were waiting until they had some real evidence about the appellant's associations with the OLF.
On 20 June 1999, the appellant travelled to the United Kingdom in order to attend a three-week workshop in web design at the University of Sussex. He was sent on the course by his employers. The appellant did not inform the police or the court that he was going to travel to the United Kingdom because he was unsure whether he would be allowed to do so, if he did so inform them. His intention was, on return to Ethiopia, to produce evidence that he had been away on the course, on the basis that that would be an adequate explanation for his failure to attend court on 23 June. The appellant did not consider that his failure to attend court would produce any big problem for him.
However, in early July 1999, when the appellant spoke to his family and friends on the telephone, he was told that his cousin, a member of the MTA, had been arrested and that the cousin had been asked questions about the appellant. The cousin had been accused of membership of the OLF. On 13 July 1999, the appellant received a letter by fax from another cousin, who told the appellant that the situation in Addis Ababa was again deteriorating and that Oromos were being spied upon and kidnapped. This cousin told the appellant that there were rumours that the appellant had used his computer in order to collect and distribute information from the internet regarding the OLF and that the appellant had left Ethiopia in order to escape political problems. The appellant was told...
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