NH (Iraq – Yazidis)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | D K ALLEN,VICE PRESIDENT |
| Judgment Date | 25 November 2004 |
| Neutral Citation | [2004] UKIAT 306 |
| Court | Immigration Appeals Tribunal |
| Date | 25 November 2004 |
[2004] UKIAT 306
IMMIGRATION APPEAL TRIBUNAL
Mr D K Allen (Vice President)
Mr A R Mackey (Vice President)
Mrs M L Roe
NH(Iraq — Yazidis) Iraq CG
The Appellant is a citizen of Iraq who appeals to the Tribunal with permission against the determination of an Adjudicator, Mrs J N Reid, in which she dismissed his appeal against the Secretary of State's decision of 29 December 2003 issuing directions for his removal from the United Kingdom, asylum having been refused.
The hearing before us took place on 5 November 2004. Mr J French, for Halliday Reeves Solicitors, appeared on behalf of the Appellant, and Mr C Avery appeared on behalf of the Secretary of State.
Although the wording is not of the clearest, we consider that it can properly be concluded that the Adjudicator accepted the following aspects of the Claimant's claim. Firstly, she accepted that he is a Yazidi and worked in the family liquor store which was destroyed after the downfall of Saddam Hussein's regime. She did not accept that he left as he was the best known member of his family, given that his father had worked in the liquor store for a number of years previously and he also had an elder brother. She did not accept that he was persecuted in Iraq because of his connection to the liquor store although it might be that the family business was the victim of a criminal attack, nor did she accept that he was at risk of persecution on return on account of having sold alcohol previously. Nor did she accept that there was nowhere he could go in Iraq to practise his faith. She gave consideration to an expert report from Dr K Rashidian and other aspects of the documentary evidence concerning Yazidis and the situation in Iraq generally, and concluded that he was not at risk on return.
The Claimant challenged the Adjudicator's determination on the basis that she had not given sufficient weight to his ability to practise his religion and to the question of attacks by religious fundamentalists on those who sell alcohol. He also referred to persecution of the Yazidi by the Kurds. Permission was granted in order for the Tribunal to assess the risk on return to Iraq for a Yazidi such as the Appellant.
Mr French reminded us of the Claimant's history and referred us to Dr Rashidian's report and to other aspects of the objective evidence in the bundle. Specifically, he referred us to page 18 concerning attempts by the previous regime to undermine the identity of the minority religions such as the Yazidis, and also in the State Department Report further evidence concerning the Yazidis, who had been defined by the Ba'ath regime as being Arabs. They had been forced to turn on the Kurds and that had clear relevance to risk on return. From the “World and Nation” Report beginning at page 23 of the bundle, there was a point at page 24 that the number of Yazidis appeared to be something between 100,000 and 600,000. Although they had won a seat on the town council in Mosul, it was unclear how many seats there were in total. It seemed that in fact the Yazidis were not represented on the Iraqi Governing Council. It could be seen from the Tharwa Project Document beginning at page 58 that many Yazidis feared that they would be at risk in the new Iraq, and there was reference to an incident which was blamed on water pollution in March 2004 which had led many inhabitants of the villages to believe that they had been deliberately poisoned because of their religion. Their faith was not accorded the same respect by Muslims as was the case for Christians and Jews.
There were no specific examples of problems for Yazidis since the downfall of the regime. The Tribunal was, however, invited to infer that, given the relatively small numbers of Yazidis and points concerning other religious minorities in Iraq to be found in the Country Report, in...
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