We are all becoming familiar with news headlines about asylum seekers who clearly should not be granted asylum in the UK, and yet they have nevertheless won the right to remain, thus demonstrating that our asylum system is ineffective. Some of these cases are so absurd that they beggar belief.
The latest example is a Pakistani drug dealer who has been allowed to stay in Britain because of his role in talking to his son about Islam and his culture. Muhammad Asif Karim has been convicted of 21 drug dealing offences, but won his appeal against deportation by arguing that it would breach his rights to a family life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
Another recent example is a Kurdish asylum seeker who won the right to stay in Britain because he has tattoos which “deviated from the principles of Islam.” In another case, an asylum seeker was allowed to stay in Britain after a judge confused Iraq with Iran.
If this wasn’t absurd enough, an Islamic State-supporting illegal immigrant could not be deported even though he is a threat to national security. His status as a refugee has been revoked, but he can’t be deported as it is thought he might face torture in his home country.
A Pakistani convicted paedophile escaped deportation because it would “harm his children”. This even though he has been banned from living with his children since his conviction.
A Nigerian asylum seeker who failed to secure asylum eight times, was finally granted asylum after joining a terrorist organisation to boost her claim. An Albanian criminal was allowed to stay in Britain partly because his son will not eat foreign chicken nuggets and a Ghanaian tourist won the right to stay in Britain after staging a marriage she did not attend.
And there are plenty more: An Iraqi asylum seeker was allowed to remain in Britain after his mother refused to hand over an ID document that would enable him to return to his home country. A Zimbabwean convicted paedophile was allowed to stay in Britain because he would face “hostility” back home. A Jamaican drug dealer avoided deportation after he promised to only smoke cannabis and not to sell it. He claimed deportation would breach his rights to a family life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). And earlier this year, a court granted Palestinian migrants seeking to flee Gaza right to remain in Britain after they applied through a scheme meant for Ukrainian refugees.
In several other cases, asylum seekers have been allowed to remain in Britain even after being found to have lied about their cases.
In yet more cases, asylum seekers have claimed they are gay or bisexual and that their lives would be at risk if they returned to their home countries. One trans woman gave evidence in as many as 12 asylum claims of this nature in one year.
There are also cases of those who fake conversion to Christianity in order to boost their asylum claims. I wrote last year about how such conversion claims can be rigorously tested.
With such a multitude of absurd cases of asylum claims being granted, one gets the impression that it is really quite easy to claim asylum here in Britain. Even the government is concerned about this. Last month it announced plans for a new law to deny sex offenders asylum rights in the UK. Other criminals, it seems, will still be allowed to stay.
One group of asylum seekers that doesn’t get so much attention is the genuine converts to Christianity who have fled actual persecution from their home countries. These, one would have thought, would breeze through an asylum system which seems so keen to give undeserving people the right to remain in the country. How much more should deserving people obtain the right to remain?
Obviously bogus claims are being waived through, but a genuine case of Islamic persecution of a Christian is blocked
Yet, in the case of “Maria”, who cannot be named for her own protection, her claim of asylum was rejected even though she had solid evidence of actual persecution which she had experienced in her country of origin because of her Christian faith.
Sadly, in her country of origin, Christian women can be kidnapped, forced to convert to Islam, and forced to marry their captors.
Maria graduated from university and started work in a professional occupation, but as the only Christian in her department. He Muslim colleagues tried to persuade her to convert to Islam, but without success. Initially this was inoffensive, sharing videos and talking with her. But when they saw that she was unwilling to convert they started being more nefarious. She was accused of fraud and told that if she converted the problem would go away.
As the pressure intensified, Maria agreed to a legal “conversion” and obtained a new identity card in her “Muslim” name. This, however, did not relieve the pressure. Now her colleagues pressured her to wear a veil and to leave her husband. They also told her that her daughter was now a Muslim. She went along with some of this until she decided enough was enough. One day she stood up to her managers and told them she would never convert.
After this, things became even more nasty. Legal evidence shows that there was an attempt to abduct her daughter. A few days later, her car was blocked by a car containing her manager and two other men. One of these men grabbed her by the hair and threatened to kill her. Only when another car started pulling up did they leave her and flee the scene.
Maria then sought legal advice and was told that it is virtually impossible in this country to change your ID card from Muslim to Christian. If Maria chose to continue to live as a Christian then her life would be in danger. This prompted Maria, her husband and her daughter to flee to the UK and seek asylum.
Initially her asylum claim was rejected with the investigator stating that she believed Maria was fabricating all the evidence. This was in spite of considerable evidence, including police reports, witness statements and WhatsApp messages documenting what happened. The investigator also appeared to deliberately misrepresent passages from various reports to make it appear that Christians in her country do not suffer persecution of the kind she had experienced.
Maria had sent her conversion certificate to the Home Office. Extraordinarily, the original was lost and a laminated photocopy was sent back to her. This copied document was later thought by Home Office to have been “tampered with” and deemed unreliable. Yet this was the primary evidence for her legal conversion.
Maria appealed to the Immigration Tribunal where Judge Chaudhary rejected all the evidence, stating that it was “incredible”.
With the help of Christian Concern and the Christian Legal Centre, Maria appealed to the Upper Tribunal. Here Judge JL Barker took the evidence seriously. Judge Barker found the evidence persuasive, both of Maria’s accounts of what happened to her, and that this kind of persecution of Christians is common in her country of origin.
Judge Barker wrote:
In essence, I accept that [Maria] rejects the Islamic faith and on return to [this country] would live as a Christian. Whilst she has clearly lived as a Christian before, I accept that she was subject to the treatment she describes and as a result of her forced conversion and what would be seen as her subsequent rejection of Islam, she would now be considered to be an apostate.
Expert witness Dr Martin Parsons provided evidence that sharia law dictates the death penalty for converts from Islam to Christianity. Given her legal “conversion” to Islam, if she now lived as a Christian, she would be considered an apostate and deserving of death according to most interpretations, or some would allow imprisonment and beatings until she repents.
Maria firmly believes that she was initially rejected for asylum from the Home Office because she was legally a convert from Islam to Christianity. She says that she was interviewed at the Home Office by a woman wearing a hijab. The fact that the Home Office managed to lose her conversion certificate lends support to her theory.
Recent revelations of a Home Office Islamic Network which seeks to “influence policymakers” to “support Muslim needs” also lends support to this theory. It does seem absurd that while multiple obviously bogus asylum claims are being waived through, a genuine case of Islamic persecution of a Christian is turned down in spite of strong supporting evidence. The system appears to be biased in favour of Muslims both in the Home Office and in the rulings of judges.
We rejoice with Maria that she has now finally been granted leave to remain in the UK. Her case is very concerning for what it appears to reveal about the UK asylum system. It looks very suspicious when Muslims are often routinely granted asylum on the flimsiest of reasons, while a Christian who has faced actual persecution is disbelieved. There should be a wholescale review of the asylum system which appears to be broken beyond repair.
