SF (Article 3- Prison Conditions)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice Collins,Mrs D E Taylor,Mr T S Culver |
| Judgment Date | 04 April 2002 |
| Neutral Citation | [2002] UKIAT 973 |
| Court | Immigration Appeals Tribunal |
| Docket Number | Appeal No: CC-32925-2001 |
| Date | 04 April 2002 |
[2002] UKIAT 973
IMMIGRATION APPEAL TRIBUNAL
Mr Justice Collins, President
Mrs D E Taylor
Mr T S Culver
Appeal No: CC-32925-2001
SF (Article 3 — Prison Conditions) Iran CG
This is an appeal by the Secretary of State against a decision of an Adjudicator, Mr P M Fairclough, who dismissed the appeal by Sayed Fazilat, whom we shall call the Respondent against the refusal of asylum, but allowed his appeal on the basis of the Human Rights Convention. The result of that was that the removal directions were set aside.
The Respondent is a citizen of Iran. He said that his problems began in that country in about November 1998 when he was working at an oil refinery. There were foreign workers involved; he became friends with the supervisors of an Italian company, and as a result he agreed to provide them with a supply of alcohol. He appreciated the risks that he was running because to act in that way was to breach the law in Iran. In due course, the vehicle which he was driving was stopped and searched and alcohol was discovered. As a result, the Respondent was arrested. He was ill-treated, he says, at the police station but was eventually taken to court to be dealt with. He was accused not only of supplying alcohol, of which he was clearly guilty, but also of smuggling and he was not, he said, guilty of that. As a result, when he raised this before the Judge, the order was that the police should go and obtain evidence. In the meantime, unless the Appellant could find bail, he would be remanded in custody. In due course, he was granted bail although apparently he was informed, or so he says, that he faced a sentence of 5 years imprisonment were he to be convicted.
He thereafter decided to enrol in university in order to obtain a degree in chemical engineering. In 1999, he was involved in student demonstrations at the university, which received subsequently a large degree of publicity. They are referred to in some detail in the US State Department Report, to which we have been referred, of February 2001. What is there said, and it describes the situation, is this:
“On July 8th 1999, students of Tehrain University, who were protesting at proposed legislation by the Majiles that would limit press freedoms, and the government's closure of a prominent reform orientated newspaper, were attacked by elements of the security forces and Ansar-e Hezbollah thugs. Police reportedly looked on and allowed repeated attacks against the students.”
It goes on to state that some four students were killed, and some 300 wounded and 400 detained, and as a result, demonstrations continued to grow and in the end some 1500 students were apparently arrested, 500 were released immediately after questioning, 800 were released later and formal investigations were undertaken against the remaining 200. In the end, four student leaders were sentenced to death, but that was commuted to a sentence of imprisonment.
The Respondent says that he was involved in these demonstrations. He was arrested, but the police recognised, after questioning him, that he was not in any way one of the leaders. He then describes how he managed to escape, in circumstances where he was lined up with others, and for some reason one of the officers in charge was called away. That left only a very few officers to deal with a considerable number of the students, and at a signal they all ran away, the Respondent successfully.
Some ten months later, he left the country having paid $10,000 to an agent and made his way to this country, entering clandestinely in the back of a lorry. He says that he remained in hiding.
The Secretary of State refused his asylum claim on 27 March 2001 and the refusal letter sets out in some detail the reasons why the Secretary of State was refusing the claim. Essentially, he did not believe the Respondent's account of the reasons why he had left Tehrain and the details that the Secretary of State gives are, on their face, relatively persuasive.
When the matter came before the Adjudicator, he heard evidence from the Respondent and he concluded that the Respondent was an honest and reliable witness and that, although there were slight discrepancies between his oral evidence and the interview record, nevertheless he was satisfied with the Respondent's evidence and found that it was entirely credible. He does not give any reasons for reaching those conclusions. Nonetheless, they are conclusions which he was entitled to reach and we do not go behind them.
He referred to the two main items on which the Respondent relied in support of the appeal. First, the charge of smuggling alcohol, and secondly, the offence of being involved in unlawful demonstrations and escaping from detention. He points out that so far as the alcohol offences were concerned, the result would be prosecution rather than persecution. He did not specifically reach any conclusions as to what might happen in relation to the unlawful demonstrations. He stated that on return he would be questioned and he would face probable charges, first, as a returnee after an unsuccessful asylum claim (there is objective evidence contained in the CIPU Report which indicates that merely to have made an unsuccessful asylum claim is not something which normally results in prosecution in Iran) and the Adjudicator went on that there was evidence to suggest that for that alone he might face questioning and...
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