Tribunal decisions

The decision

Upper Tribunal
(Immigration and Asylum Chamber) Appeal Number: AA/11515/2014

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Heard at Glasgow
Decision and reasons promulgated
on 11 November 2016
on 16 November 2016

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE MACLEMAN

Between

MEI MEI YU
Appellant
and

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

For the Appellant: Mr S Winter, Advocate, instructed by Latta & Co, Solicitors
For the Respondent: Mrs M O'Brien, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

DETERMINATION AND REASONS
1. The appellant left China in 2009 to study in Denmark. She went back to China in October and returned to Denmark on 13 November 2011, then entered the UK on 17 November 2011. She sought asylum in June 2014, a few months before she was due to give birth.
2. The appellant claimed that she joined the Church of Almighty God, or Eastern Lightning, in 2010, and went to China at the request of her church to spread the word about the end of the world in 2012. She was arrested at a demonstration for her cause, and detained, but released on bail after signing a document stating that Eastern Lightning is an evil cult. She was required to report and not to leave the country, but she was able to travel from Beijing back to Denmark on her own passport.
3. The respondent refused the claim by letter dated 5 December 2014. It was accepted that the appellant was a member of Eastern Lightning, but not that she had any encounter with the Chinese authorities or that they had any interest in her. The respondent applied QH (Christians - risk) China CG [2014] UKUT 86.
4. FtT Judge Bradshaw dismissed the appellant's appeal by decision promulgated on 23 March 2015. He did not accept that the appellant is anything but an ordinary member of her religion or that she had any profile with the Chinese authorities. In light of QH he found that the appellant did not fall into any risk category (paragraphs 100 - 103).
5. The appellant sought permission to appeal. One of her proposed grounds was that the judge had overlooked that the appellant's religion did not fall simply into the category of an unregistered church, but was banned as an evil cult.
6. Permission was refused by the FtT and by the UT.
7. The Court reduced the UT's refusal of permission.
8. On 28 July 2016, the Vice President of the UT granted permission, in view of the interlocutor of the Court.
9. Mr Winter advised that the outcome in the Court was the result of a contested hearing and an oral judgement only. The arguable error of law identified had been whether the FtT judge erred in considering that QH applied. Mrs O'Brien agreed that was the only issue arising. She said that the respondent's position was that the judge made no error such as to require his decision to be set aside.
10. Mr Winter submitted thus. QH made only one passing reference to the "evil cult" category, at paragraph 18. This is a distinct group of organisations, not merely unregistered but positively banned. A schedule of references to the background material which had been before the FtT showed the greater degree of risk attached. The appellant said she continued to be active online, produced her posts and said that she would plan to re-engage with her church. Once it was recognised that there is a further category of risk, and the background material was taken into account, the FtT decision should be set aside and reversed.
11. Mrs O'Brien argued as follows. The appellant had been accepted to be a member of Eastern Lightning, but had achieved no further credibility finding. Her case was rightly approached in the light of the authorities having no knowledge of or interest in her, and of her not having proselytised in the past, or being likely to do so in future. The judge had been right to find nothing likely to place her at risk. Nothing had been identified to lead to any other conclusion, so the decision should stand.
12. I reserved my decision.
13. In QH the UT found that in general the risk of persecution of Christians in China is very low, indeed statistically virtually negligible. That applied not only to state registered to also to unregistered or "house" churches. The headnote at 4 (iv) and (v) records findings that there may be a risk of persecution for certain individual Christians who choose to worship in unregistered churches and to conduct themselves in such a way as to attract the local authorities' attention to them or their political, social or cultural views. However, unless such individuals are the subject of an arrest warrant, their name is on a blacklist, or they have a pending sentence, such a risk will be limited to the local area.
14. The one specific reference in QH to "evil cults", as identified by Mr Winter, is at paragraph 18, quoting a 2013 report by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom 2013:
Religious freedom conditions in China deteriorated significantly? The Falun Gong and other groups deemed "evil cults" face long-term imprisonment, forced renunciation of faith and torture in detention.
15. The background news reports and other materials produced for the appellant show that Eastern Lightning has been listed among 14 banned religious groups since 1995. Sources such as CNN describe some of its members as involved in violence, extortion, brainwashing and murder. It is said to number from several hundred thousand to one million members.
16. Refugee World says that Eastern Lightning has shown outright hostility towards the Communist Party. The same source cites legislation:
Whoever forms or uses superstitious sects or secret societies or weird religious organisations or uses superstition to undermine the implementation of the laws and administrative rules and regulations of the state shall be sentenced to fixed term imprisonment of not less than 3 but not more than 7 years?
A defence lawyer is quoted in the New York Times as saying that the authorities sought to eradicate the entire group, not just those who committed crimes; but that particularly strong statement does not fit well with the more specific evidence.
Sources are cited for 1300 detentions in December 2012, when the group believed the world to be coming to an end, and of criminal cases in the aftermath numbering up to 335, with outcomes varying from suspended sentences up to 8 years' imprisonment.
That evidence shows serious outcomes for a few, after a particular period of hectic activity, but not mass ongoing arrests of lower profile adherents.
17. There may be Christian religious groups in China in China at the extremes, involvement with which takes an individual beyond the QH categories of registered and unregistered churches. However, the evidence does not disclose a further straightforward category of banned "evil cults", simple membership of which leads to a protection need. Such cases must depend on the evidence about the particular organisation, and about the individual.
18. The inclusion of Falun Gong among the "evil cults" is instructive. It is a movement strongly disapproved of by the government, some of whose practitioners have been found to be at risk, but involvement has never been found to require blanket protection. The position for Falun Gong practitioners, who are within the "evil cult" legal category, is broadly similar to that of participants in unregistered churches. There is no clear distinction between the unregistered and the banned categories.
19. The evidence does not establish risk to the many members of Eastern Lightning, absent additional factors of a similar nature to those identified in QH in relation to unregistered churches. The appellant had not engaged in crime, preached the apocalypse or otherwise drawn the wrath of the authorities and was not likely to do so. The principles of QH were safely applicable. Any failure to draw a distinction between groups which were unregistered and those which have been specifically banned did not amount to a legal error such as to require the decision to be set aside.
20. The determination of the First-tier Tribunal shall stand.
21. No anonymity direction has been requested or made.

14 November 2016
Upper Tribunal Judge Macleman