Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER Case No: UI-2024-002931
First-tier Tribunal No: PA/60311/2023
LP/01746/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

On 6th of July 2026

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE KEBEDE

Between

MS
(Anonymity Order made)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr K Wood, of Immigration Advice Service
For the Respondent: Mr A Tan, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Manchester Civil Justice Centre on 15 June 2026

DECISION AND REASONS
1. This is the re-making of the decision in the appellant’s appeal, following the setting aside, in a decision promulgated on 20 March 2026, of the First-tier Tribunal’s decision which dismissed the appeal on asylum and human rights grounds.
2. The appellant, whose date of birth is recorded as 1 January 1997, is a national of Iran of Kurdish ethnicity. He arrived in the UK on 8 October 2021, having left Iran on 1 September 2021 and travelled through Turkey, Italy and France, and claimed asylum on 9 October 2021. His claim was refused on 20 October 2023. He appealed against that decision.
3. The appellant’s claim was made on the following basis. He worked as a kolbar from the age of 12 and was involved in smuggling KDPI materials for the party. He was ambushed when smuggling KDPI materials and his house was raided by the authorities. He fled the country as a result. He fears being killed by the Iranian authorities if he returns to Iran, as a supporter of the KDPI transporting political materials.
4. The respondent, in refusing the appellant’s claim, accepted that he was of Kurdish ethnicity and that he had attended demonstrations and been politically active against the Iranian regime since being in the UK, but did not accept that he was a supporter of the KDPI and did not accept that he distributed political material for the KDPI or that he was of adverse interest to the Iranian authorities. The respondent considered that the appellant had provided inconsistent evidence and that there were some elements of his account that were implausible and inconsistent with external information. The respondent did not accept that the appellant’s activities in the UK on social media and attending demonstrations would have put him at real risk because the information he had provided suggested that he was just a low-level member at the demonstrations and his Facebook account details would not have brought him to the adverse attention of the authorities. It was not accepted that he would be at risk on return to Iran or that his removal there would breach his human rights.
5. The appellant’s appeal against that decision was heard in the First-tier Tribunal on 15 April 2024. The judge found that the appellant had given an untruthful account of having been ambushed by the authorities when he claimed he was transporting KDPI materials, and did not accept his account in that regard, or that he was working as a kolber. The judge considered that the appellant had given inconsistent evidence in relation to leafleting for the KDPI and did not accept that he was involved with the KDPI. The judge considered that the appellant had fabricated the core of his claim. As for his sur place activities in the UK, the judge accepted that there were a limited number of Facebook posts and undated photographs indicating that the appellant was present at demonstrations, but she found the evidence of his Facebook activity to be of limited evidential value. She found that the Facebook evidence and attendance at demonstrations did not suggest that the appellant had a political profile and considered that being a mere supporter did not lead to risk alone. The judge did not accept that the appellant would have come to the adverse attention of the Iranian authorities by reason of his Facebook posts and attendance at demonstrations. On the basis that the appellant was not politically active in Iran and that his account for leaving Iran was not a credible one, she did not accept that the appellant would engage in anti-regime activity on return to Iran. The judge did not consider that the appellant would be at risk solely on the grounds of illegal exit and being Kurdish and considered that he would have no adverse profile such as to attract the interest of the authorities on return to Iran. The judge found that the appellant would not be at risk on return to Iran and she accordingly dismissed the appeal on all grounds, in a decision promulgated on 27 April 2024.
6. The appellant sought permission to appeal to the Upper Tribunal against the judge’s decision on three grounds. Firstly, that the judge had failed to apply the guidance in BA (Demonstrators in Britain - risk on return) Iran CG [2011] UKUT 36 and had failed to make any finding of fact as to the number of demonstrations the appellant had attended or what he did at them. Secondly, that there had been procedural unfairness in that the judge had rejected the appellant’s claim to have worked as a kolbar when that was not placed in issue by the respondent, so depriving the appellant of an opportunity to address the matter. Thirdly, that the judge had failed to apply anxious scrutiny to the appellant’s case and failed to consider the appellant’s explanation for having had to continue working as a kolber.
7. Permission was refused in the First-tier Tribunal, but granted upon renewal in the Upper Tribunal, with the focus of the grant being on the first ground.
8. The matter came before me on 11 March 2026 to determine whether the First-tier Tribunal Judge had erred in law. In a decision promulgated on 20 March 2026, I found as follows:
“11. Permission was granted primarily on the first ground of appeal, with the second and third grounds considered to be weaker. I shall address the second and third grounds first, since I do not consider either to have merit.
12. With regard to the procedural unfairness point made in the second ground, it is clearly the case that the respondent did not accept any of the appellant’s account of his experiences in Iran before his departure. The appellant asserts that because the appellant’s claim to have worked as a kolbar was not listed under “material facts I do not accept” in the refusal decision, the implication is that that part of his case was accepted by the respondent. However, by the same reasoning it is relevant to note that the appellant’s account of working as a kolbar was not listed under “material facts I accept”. It is furthermore clear from the substance of the decision that that aspect of the appellant’s account was not accepted by the respondent. That is apparent from the reference in the refusal decision, under the heading “internal inconsistency”, to the appellant’s evidence in that regard being inconsistent and from the respondent’s conclusion, under the heading “well-founded fear of persecution”, that the material facts of his claim were not accepted. In light of those clear findings by the respondent, the appellant would have been fully aware that none of his claim was accepted and thus had ample opportunity to respond to the challenge. There is simply no basis upon which he could have assumed that his account of working as a kolbar had been accepted by the respondent. Accordingly I reject the assertion that there was any procedural unfairness in that regard.
13. The appellant, in any event, had a full opportunity to demonstrate to the judge that his claim was a credible one through his oral evidence at the hearing. That evidence, however, was found by the judge, for reasons fully and properly given, to contain various inconsistencies and to be unreliable. The judge gave numerous reasons, at [10], for concluding as such. The third ground challenges the judge’s reasoning at [10(a)], asserting that she failed to consider material evidence arising from the appellant’s answers at his interview (questions 16, 44 and 45) when concluding that it was not reasonably likely that he would continue to work as a kolber after receiving a warning from the authorities. However there is no reason to conclude that the judge failed to take that evidence into account. She was not required to cite each and every part of the evidence. She confirmed at [9] that she had considered all the evidence whether specifically mentioned or not. In any event that was not the judge’s only reason for finding the appellant’s account of having worked as a kolbar to be lacking in credibility. On the contrary, there were numerous other reasons provided by the judge at [10] for rejecting his account, in particular the various inconsistencies in his evidence, with [10(b)], [10(f)] and [10(g)] referring specifically to inconsistencies in his account of his work as a kolbar and [10(f)] providing reasons for rejecting his attempt at explaining the inconsistencies. In the light of those inconsistencies, and for the other reasons given, the judge was perfectly entitled to conclude that the appellant had not presented a reliable and credible account of his work as a kolber, the issues faced as a result of that work and ultimately his reasons for leaving Iran. Ground three is therefore not made out.
14. However I do find that the first ground is made out. The assertion in that ground is that the judge failed to apply the guidance in BA and that, whilst the appellant’s evidence in his statement was that he had attended six demonstrations, the judge had not made any findings on the number of demonstrations he attended, nor as to whether he was a passive or active attendee and what the demonstrations were about. Although, as Ms Newton submitted, it is the case that the judge gave consideration at [16] to the appellant’s role in the demonstrations he attended, finding him to be nothing more than a mere attendee and to hold no significant political profile, it is of note that she did not make any findings on whether the appellant’s participation in the demonstrations was opportunistic or whether it represented genuinely held political interests. As Mr Wood submitted, the respondent accepted that the appellant was politically active in the UK. The respondent did not specify whether that political activity represented genuine political beliefs, and did not specifically reject such an assertion. The judge made no findings in that regard. Mr Wood submitted that that was relevant to the judge’s finding at [16], that the appellant would not engage in any regime political activity on return to Iran. I agree with Mr Wood. The judge’s finding in that respect did not make clear whether she considered that the appellant would not engage in any activity in Iran simply because he had not been genuinely politically active previously or whether it was because he had overall no genuine political beliefs in opposition to the regime in Iran. It may be that the judge considered that, because she had rejected the appellant’s account of his previous experiences and political involvement in Iran, that that then suggested that he lacked any genuine political beliefs in the UK. However that did not necessarily follow and the judge ought to have made findings in that regard, but failed to do so. That was particularly relevant, as Mr Wood submitted, to the issue of what the appellant would or could reasonably be expected to say when questioned by the Iranian authorities at the pinch point of return and whether what he said would then expose him to a risk of serious harm.
15. In the circumstances the judge’s decision on risk on return has to be set aside and fresh findings need to be made in that regard. I see no reasons why the judge’s findings on the appellant’s past experiences in Iran and his lack of political engagement prior to his departure from Iran should not be preserved. Whilst there was nothing erroneous in the judge’s assessment of the Facebook evidence per se, that assessment was not complete without the above mentioned considerations having been undertaken. The decision needs to be re-made, therefore, on the risks arising out of the appellant’s sur place activities in the UK.
16. The decision will be accordingly re-made at a resumed hearing in the Upper Tribunal on the sole issue of risk arising from the appellant’s sur place activities in the UK. The hearing will take place on a date to be notified to the parties.”
9. The matter was listed for a resumed hearing and came before myself on 15 June 2026, to re-make the decision in the appeal.
Hearing for the Re-making of the Decision
10. For the resumed hearing, the appellant produced an appeal bundle which included an additional witness statement and further extracts from his Facebook account. I also had a skeleton argument from Ms Newton who was the Home Office Presenting Officer in the error of law hearing.
11. The appellant gave oral evidence before me through an interpreter in the Kurdish Sorani language. I was satisfied that the appellant and interpreter understood each other and that there were no interpretation problems throughout the hearing. The appellant adopted his previous and up-dated statements as his evidence in chief and was cross-examined by Mr Tan. He said that the first demonstration he attended in the UK was in the winter of 2022. The photographs of him at the demonstration were taken by his friends on his mobile telephone. He asked his friends to take the photographs to prove that he was there. He did not ask his friends to give evidence in support of his appeal because the photographs were evidence. The appellant said that he opened his Facebook account in 2022 but he could not recall which month. He did not read or write and so he did not know the month. The appellant confirmed that he could still not read or write. When asked by Mr Tan how he was able to write information and post it on Facebook if he could not read or write, the appellant said that a friend helped with posting on Facebook. When Mr Tan put to the appellant that his most recent statement stated that his Facebook posts were written by him, the appellant said that he did not say that. When asked if he had other social media accounts aside from Facebook, the appellant said that he did not. When referred to his first statement where he stated at [17] that he posted on Instagram, the appellant said that he had never said that he had Instagram. He only had Facebook. He did not know why that was written in his statement. He could not read English and he had never said that. When asked why, if he had been in the UK since October 2021, he had never joined any Kurdish organisations, the appellant said that he did not know and he was not aware of that. When asked to confirm that, despite being at all those demonstrations for the Kurdish cause he had never realised they had been organised by Kurdish organisations and that he could have joined those organisations, the appellant said that he did not know that there were those groups.
12. Mr Wood did not seek to re-examine the appellant. Both parties then made submissions.
13. Mr Tan submitted that the appellant did not have a genuine political opinion. The appellant had said that his political experiences stemmed from his circumstances in Iran, having stated at [9] of his statement that he had been exposed to the KDPI through his friend during his work as a kolbar and that the KDPI cause resonated with him. That was the platform for his sur place activities. However the First-tier Tribunal Judge had not accepted that claim as credible. That adverse finding bled into the sur place claim. Mr Tan submitted that if the appellant’s political opinion had been established since 2020 when he was in Iran, it lacked credibility that he would have waited so long to take action in the UK. The appellant said in his oral evidence that he had attended his first demonstration in 2022, but his Facebook activity suggested his activity started in spring 2023. There was therefore an evidential gap. Mr Tan submitted that there was only the appellant’s evidence about the purpose of his attendance at the demonstrations, his role there and the length of time spent there, as he had not obtained statements from his friends. The appellant had been inconsistent about his social media activity, about whether he posted on only Facebook or Facebook and Instagram, and whether he understood the language of the Facebook posts. Little weight should therefore be given to his evidence of online activity and his activity in person. The photographs of him at the demonstrations did not show that he played any role. He was not aware of Kurdish organisations, yet they would have organised the demonstrations. The photographs showed that the appellant was standing at a distance facing away from the Iranian Embassy. The photographs were only a short snap in time and there was no evidence that the Iranian authorities would have noticed him. The appellant did not have a profile which would be of interest to the Iranian authorities. The same could be said of the appellant’s Facebook activity. He had not provided a full “download your information” and there was nothing about the people with whom he had a friendship or to show that the people engaging with his posts were on the Iranian watch list. There was nothing to show that the appellant would appear on any social graph of interest the Iranian authorities. Mr Tan relied on the cases of BA (Demonstrators in Britain – risk on return) Iran CG [2011] UKUT and XX v SSHD (PJAK – sur place activities – Facebook) Iran CG [2022] UKUT 23 in relation to the limitations of facial recognition technology and submitted that the articles relied upon by the appellant in that regard related to technology used by the Iranian authorities in Iran rather than outside the country and were not applicable to his circumstances. Mr Tan also relied on the case of OM v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025] EWCA Civ 1585 in submitting that the appellant’s low profile activities would not put him at risk on return.
14. Mr Wood submitted that it was relevant that the appellant had raised his sur place activities in the UK in his claim form and interview prior to the refusal of his asylum claim. The basis of his sur place activities was his ethnicity and it was therefore not the case that the events he described in Iran bled into the sur place claim. Mr Wood relied on the findings in WAS (Pakistan) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2023] EWCA Civ 894 that credibility was not seamless. The appellant had given a plausible reason for why he opposed the Iranian regime. Mr Wood submitted that the respondent had accepted, in the refusal decision, that the appellant was involved in political activities and it was only in the recent skeleton argument that she sought to go against that and suggest that his activities were not genuine. Mr Wood submitted that it should be accepted that the appellant’s political activities were genuine. As held in BA, just because the appellant was not a leader or had a high profile, that did not mean that there was no risk. The photographs showed him holding leaflets and chanting through a loudspeaker. He was clearly a regular participant, having attended 18 demonstrations. He had travelled from Oldham to London to attend. His activities were therefore genuine. There was evidence that there were spotters at demonstrations and that images in photographs would be transmitted to Iran. Given the number of demonstrations attended, there was a real risk that the appellant would be identified. Mr Wood relied upon the case of MH (Bangladesh) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025] EWCA Civ 688 in that respect and submitted that the appellant was standing as close as he could get to the Embassy, given the police restrictions. Mr Wood relied upon the evidence of facial recognition in submitting that the appellant would be identified at the pinch-point, when being documented here or on his return to Iran. Even if the Iranian authorities ultimately found that he was not of interest to them, he would be at risk of being detained and tortured on return to Iran, given the hair trigger approach of the Iranian authorities. He would be questioned as someone who had left Iran illegally and he could not be expected to lie if asked the basis of his asylum claim and about the demonstrations he attended. The appellant was therefore at risk on return.
Analysis
15. The adverse credibility findings made by the First-tier Tribunal in relation to the appellant’s activities prior to his departure from Iran and his reasons for leaving Iran have been preserved. The appeal has come back before me to re-make the decision purely on the risk to the appellant arising from his sur place activities. As I pointed out in my error of law decision, although the respondent had accepted, in the refusal decision, that the appellant was politically active in the UK, the decision did not include any acceptance that that political activity represented genuine political beliefs. The respondent was simply acknowledging that the appellant had made political posts on social media and that he had attended demonstrations. The respondent has made it abundantly clear in her skeleton argument for this appeal that it is not accepted the appellant has genuinely held political beliefs. Having heard oral evidence from the appellant myself, I am entirely in agreement with that view.
16. Certainly, the appellant’s overall credibility as a witness of truth is not assisted by the adverse credibility findings already made in regard to his account of his previous experiences and political involvement in Iran. That is particularly the case since, as Mr Tan submitted, the appellant’s evidence was that the platform for his political activities was his previous exposure to the KDPI when working as a kolbar, a claim which was rejected by the First-tier Tribunal as lacking in credibility. Although Mr Wood sought to separate the appellant’s activities before and after leaving Iran by submitting that the basis of the appellant’s sur place activities was his ethnicity, I agree with Mr Tan that it is clearly intertwined with his account of being previously politically active.
17. In any event and/or in addition, there are further reasons to doubt the appellant’s account of the motivation behind his activities in the UK. The appellant was a particularly unimpressive witness at the hearing before me and in fact his oral evidence contradicted the contents of the witness statements upon which he was relying. In his more recent statement of 26 February 2026, in order to allay any previous concerns as to who had actually made the Facebook posts upon which he was relying, he stated at [8] that a friend had taught him to read and write and he therefore wrote the posts himself in Kurdish and used Facebook translate to translate them. Yet at the hearing his evidence was that he still could not read and write and that his friend helped him with the posts. When Mr Tan put the contradictory evidence to him he denied having stated that the posts were written by himself. In addition, whilst the appellant’s evidence in his first statement at [17] was that he regularly posted on Facebook and Instagram against the Iranian regime, his oral evidence before me was that he did not have Instagram and only posted on Facebook, and he denied having ever mentioned that he used Instagram. It was therefore difficult to ascertain where the truth lay. Clearly his witness statements do not provide a reliable account of his circumstances and it apparent that they do not properly reflect his own claims. Further, and having considered the contents of the appellant’s social media postings I note, with regard to the new evidence, that they all contain the identical paragraph as an explanation for his participation in the demonstrations. As observed in the respondent’s skeleton argument, the appellant’s activity appears to be limited to him sharing content and posting photographs of himself outside the Iranian Embassy. I consider all of this to be a further reflection of a lack of personal and genuine interest in the activity.
18. Furthermore, as Mr Tan submitted, there was an evidential gap, since the appellant relied upon his Facebook posts as evidence of his attendance at demonstrations, yet he claimed before me that the first demonstration he attended in the UK was in 2022 whilst the Facebook posts suggested that his activities started in the first quarter of 2023. It is therefore not clear when the appellant was claiming to have commenced his political activities in the UK and indeed what was the extent of those activities. As submitted in the respondent’s skeleton argument for this hearing, the appellant had failed to explain why, if he held genuine political beliefs, he apparently waited for over a year to commence his activities after arriving in the UK. As for the evidence of his attendance at demonstrations, I note that the appellant, in his first statement of 29 January 2024, stated at [16] that at that time he had attended around 10 demonstrations in front of the Iranian Embassy in London, yet at [29] of the same statement he stated that he had attended six demonstrations outside the Iranian Embassy in London. Again this calls into question the reliability of the evidence in the statements. Furthermore, the photographs upon which the appellant relies are not dated and, whilst he is wearing different clothes suggesting different occasions, it is not possible to ascertain his level of attendance. The same can be said of the more recent evidence where the appellant gave the dates of 12 demonstrations more recently attended in London at [3] of his statement. Whilst the Facebook posts themselves are dated, the photographs within the posts are not. In the circumstances I do not accept that the appellant has provided a reliable account of the number of demonstrations attended and the frequency of his participation.
19. Against that background is the consideration of the appellant’s actual role at the demonstrations. He claims in his statement that he chanted slogans, burnt pictures, held up posters and placards and sometimes used a microphone. The photographs themselves show only a snapshot in time and, given the overall credibility concerns of the appellant’s account of his activities, are of little weight in ascertaining the level of his participation and could easily have been posed for the purposes of providing evidence for this appeal. Indeed, the photographs show him at some distance from the Embassy, albeit I accept that there is a barrier preventing him from going closer, but nevertheless he has his back to the Embassy, again giving the impression that his main motivation was being photographed by friends rather than participating in the events. That is particularly so given the appellant’s rather remarkable evidence at the hearing that he was unaware that there were Kurdish organisations in the UK which he could have joined and, when put to him by Mr Tan, that he had not realised that the demonstrations were organised by such organisations. In the circumstances I do not accept that the evidence demonstrates any genuine interest by the appellant in political activity in the UK. I consider the evidence to show his involvement in activities in the UK to be purely opportunistic and contrived.
20. That then leads to the question of whether those limited activities would nevertheless put the appellant at risk on return to Iran. I do not accept that they would. The appellant relies on photographs of what appear to be people at a window holding a mobile phone which he claims to be evidence of the Iranian state monitoring attendees, which the First-tier Tribunal rejected. I conclude likewise. I do not accept that those photographs show what the appellant is claiming and in any event there is nothing linking those photographs to him or the demonstrations he attended. In any event I do not accept that the appellant played any role at the demonstrations or that he undertook any activities, or has any profile, likely to bring him to the attention of the Iranian authorities or arouse any adverse interest in him, in terms of the guidance in BA (Demonstrators in Britain - risk on return) Iran CG [2011] UKUT 36. The number of demonstrations he has attended is not clear and I do not accept his own account in that regard. His participation has been limited to the extent already described. There is no reason for concluding that any facial recognition systems employed by the Iranian authorities would pick up the appellant. He has not been of any prior interest to the Iranian authorities and there is no reason why he would now be of any interest to them. Given that his social media activity is not indicative of any genuine political beliefs, it is open to the appellant to delete his Facebook account to avoid any risk arising from his posts, prior to the first pinch-point of being interviewed for an ETD, as set out in XX (PJAK, sur place activities, Facebook) Iran (CG) [2022] UKUT 23.
21. Although being Kurdish is an exacerbating factor on return to Iran, that alone is not sufficient to put the appellant at risk, even coupled with his illegal exit, as established in SSH and HR (illegal exit: failed asylum seeker) Iran (CG) [2016] UKUT 308 and confirmed in HB (Kurds) Iran (illegal exit: failed asylum seeker) CG [2018] UKUT 430. As the Court of Appeal recently confirmed in OM [2025] EWCA Civ 1585 at [43], with reference to SSH, a person with no history other than being an asylum seeker who had exited illegally and who could be expected to tell the truth when questioned would not face a real risk of ill-treatment during the period of questioning at the airport. The appellant is not to be expected to volunteer information about activities not genuinely undertaken.
22. For all these reasons, given that there is no basis for the Iranian authorities to have any suspicion of the appellant arising from any actual or perceived activities in Iran or in the UK, there would be no reason for him to be detained and transferred for further questioning on return to Iran. There is no reason to believe that he would wish to engage in anti-regime activities in Iran, having never previously held any genuine political beliefs and having never previously been genuinely involved in anti-regime activities. The appellant’s removal to Iran would not, therefore, give rise to any real risk of persecution and he has failed to make out any grounds of claim on asylum, humanitarian protection or human rights grounds.
DECISION
23. The making of the decision of the First-tier Tribunal involved an error on a point of law and has been set aside. I re-make the decision by dismissing the appeal on all grounds.

Signed: S Kebede
Upper Tribunal Judge Kebede

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

26 June 2026