Christian refugee refused asylum

A judge has refused asylum to an Iraqi Christian who fled Islamic State (IS) jihadists who were threatening to kill his family, writes Abigail Frymann Rouch.

The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was told he could return to Iraqi Kurdistan, by Judge Hussain, after a hearing at the First-tier Immigration and Asylum Tribunal. He had first escaped to the region with his family in 2014 after IS seized control of his home city of Mosul.

The judge accepted that the man’s family had received death threats in Mosul in 2010 and 2014 and that a bomb had been placed outside their front door. But he questioned whether the appellant had personally suffered persecution or would be at risk of serious harm if he went to Kurdistan.  

The judge dismissed the man’s claim that his attendance at an event, supported by a Christian charity and reported by the press, when he was introduced to Prince Charles, put him at increased risk of being targeted by IS if he went back to the region. Instead the judge argued that if such publicity put his family at risk, which he doubted, then attending the event was “singularly irresponsible”.  

The man said he had not been able to make contact with his parents since last December, when they had been asked to leave the church where they were sheltering in Kurdistan. The judge said he did not believe that. The man will appeal against the ruling.