Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2024-005999
First Tier Tribunal No: PA/58128/2023
LP/05270/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 9 September 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE BRUCE

Between

RH (IRAN)
(anonymity order made)
Appellant
and

Secretary of State for Home Department
Respondent

Representation:

For the Appellant: Mr Greer, Counsel instructed by Fisher Stone Solicitors
For the Respondent: Ms Blackburn, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Phoenix House (Bradford) on 21 July 2025

ANONYMITY

Pursuant to rule 14 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008, the Appellant is granted anonymity.

No-one shall publish or reveal any information, including the name or address of the Appellant likely to lead members of the public to identify the Appellant. Failure to comply with this order could amount to a contempt of court.

DECISION AND REASONS

1. The Appellant is a national of Iran born in 2005. He appeals with permission against the decision of the First-tier Tribunal to dismiss his appeal on protection grounds.

Background

2. The basis of the Appellant’s claim for protection is a straightforward one. He is a Kurd from northern Iran. At the age of 16 he began to help his father in the family business, a shoe shop near Mariwan. He soon found out that his father was using the shop to store and distribute materials for the banned Kurdish separatist group the KDPI. His father gave him instructions about when to receive and give materials to certain individuals, who provided a recognised code word. Sometime in or around 2022, the Appellant’s father was arrested by the Iranian security services. The Appellant discovered this when his cousin arrived at the store to tell him. The Appellant’s mother and uncle arranged for the Appellant to leave Iran immediately, fearing that he would also be arrested. He made his way across Europe, and having entered the United Kingdom illegally, claimed asylum here on 20 September 2022. The Appellant was age assessed by Kirklees Council to have been 17 years old when he arrived.

3. The only issue before the First-tier Tribunal was whether this account was true, since the Respondent accepted that if it were, the Appellant would face a real risk of persecution for reasons of his imputed political opinion.

4. This being an appeal to which the provisions of s32 of the Nationality, Asylum and Borders Act 2022 applied, the Tribunal began by asking itself whether there was in this case a Convention ground. This was identified as being Kurdish origins (ethnicity) and his family connection to the KDPI (membership of particular social group/risk opinion). Next, the Tribunal considered whether the Appellant does “in fact fear” persecution on those grounds: this too was answered in the affirmative. Turning to the question of risk, the Tribunal discounted a number of submissions made by the Respondent about the quality of the Appellant’s evidence. It was not, for instance, prepared to place any weight on alleged discrepancies arising from an interview conducted on arrival, when the Appellant was a minor, in the absence of either legal advice or social worker. Nevertheless, there were reasons why the Tribunal concluded that he was not at risk in Iran today. The central reasoning is found at paragraphs 33 and 34 of the decision:

“33. It is a feature of the appellant’s account that he derives his fear of persecution entirely from accounts given to him by others at second or even third hand. He has never encountered the Iranian authorities himself either directly or indirectly through any written or verbal communication. He says he first learnt of the problems from his cousin who came to his shop. This cousin had come from his mother’s home. The appellant does not say his cousin witnessed any arrest of his father and therefore his cousin must have learnt it from the mother. He therefore can give no independent verification. The appellant has given two differing accounts of what his mother told him: in the first (his asylum interview) she thought he maybe was at risk because of his father’s activities; by the time of his second account in his witness statement his mother was telling him he was definitely at risk and that the Iranian authorities were looking for him. Neither the mother or cousin of course are available to have their accounts challenged, but there is nothing from either of them to give direct information to the tribunal. The appellant’s fear of persecution is derived therefore entirely from hearsay from people who cannot be challenged as to the accuracy of what they told the appellant. I find that the divergence in the account of his mother between witness statement and interview weakens the reliability of the whole account.

34. The appellant was a child when the claimed events occurred. He is illiterate and cannot say what the materials were that were handed over to the people coming into the shop. The inference that this was banned KDPI material comes entirely from his mother who said that his father worked for the KDPI. This however is what his mother told him, and again there is no other evidence that his father had anything to do with the KDPI. The mere fact that his father was a member of the KDPI, even if it were accepted, takes the evidence no further as to what materials were actually being handed over. There are many things that are banned in Iran besides KDPI material (pornography being one of them). The appellant cannot say from his own knowledge what the material was, he only says he knew where it was hidden. The assertion that the appellant faces a risk of persecution based on the fact that he was distributing banned KDPI material is therefore not based on any evidence. It is based on supposition and is, I find, pure speculation”.

5. The Tribunal then directed itself to the country guidance given in HB (Kurds) Iran CG [2018] UKUT 00430 (IAC), to the effect that the Iranian authorities operate a “hair-trigger” approach to Kurdish activities. Against this background the Tribunal found certain elements of the account not to be credible: it concluded that had the Iranian authorities been investigating the Appellant’s father, they would likely have had the whole family under surveillance (this preventing the Appellant returning home to speak with his mother, and thereafter staying at an uncle’s house), and they would have raided and searched his shop as well as his home. Country background evidence produced since HB (Iran) was heard indicates that family members can also be called in for questioning or arrested, yet on the Appellant’s evidence no one else was brought in.

Grounds of Appeal: Discussion and Findings

6. I note at the outset that the Appellant faced two difficulties in proving his case. First, his young age at the date that he left Iran meant that even if his account was true, there was a limit to the amount of detail he could provide about his father’s activities. Second, the obstacle long ago identified in the UNCHR Handbook1, and one faced by many asylum seekers, is that it is generally very difficult for those fleeing their country of origin to provide documentary or other evidence to corroborate their claims.

7. It is against that background that Mr Greer advances two grounds of appeal. I deal with each in turn.

8. The first ground is that the Tribunal erred at its §§33 and 34 (set out above), in refusing to attach any weight to hearsay, and impermissibly requiring corroboration, for instance in evidence from the Appellant’s mother. The objections to this approach are manifold.

9. First, this is a point that was not raised by the Respondent, nor by the Tribunal itself hearing. The first that the Appellant’s knew of the Tribunal’s wish to hear from his mother was in the decision. He was therefore denied the opportunity to remedy the ‘defect’, and/or address the Tribunal on the correct approach. Second, it is unclear to the Appellant what documentary evidence the Tribunal thought might be available to him in the circumstances. Third, the conclusion that it was inherently improbable that the Appellant would lose contact with his family is criticised as being speculative and unreasoned, and at odds with Court of Appeal authority on the experiences of children under the control of people smugglers. Four, it is irrational to blame the Appellant for his failure to trace his own family in circumstances where the responsibility for that lies wholly with the state. Where the state has failed in that duty, as here, the child should be given the benefit of the doubt: TN & Ors (Afghanistan) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2015] UKSC 40. Fifth, the Tribunal nowhere considers the Appellant’s explanation for why he has not tried to contact his family. It was his evidence that he was worried that any contact might put his family at risk. This was, it is submitted, a wholly reasonable explanation in light of the evidence identified by the Tribunal about the extent to which the Iranian state monitors the families of dissidents.

10. In reply the Secretary of State submits that the Appellant’s lack of contact with, or evidence from, family members in Iran was squarely in issue, since it had been raised in the pre-hearing ‘review’. It is further submitted that in reality the focus of this decision is not the absence of corroborative evidence; rather it is the Tribunal’s identification of what it found to be internal and external inconsistencies.

11. There was in this decision, both parties agree, a generally very fair and balanced evaluation of the account. The Respondent had advanced a number of points about the quality of the Appellant’s evidence which the Tribunal had rejected as unhelpful, for instance the attempt to find discrepancy in the Appellant’s evidence that he had both walked ‘to’ woodland and walked ‘through’ woodland on his journey out of Iran. It is certainly a decision which reassures the reader that anxious scrutiny has been given to the Appellant’s claim. I also agree with the Secretary of State that there cannot realistically have been any procedural unfairness, given the matters raised in the Respondent’s pre-hearing review.

12. Nevertheless I am concerned that the Tribunal may, impermissibly, have required corroboration, or drawn negative inference from its absence. That refugee claimants should not be expected to produce corroborative evidence, either in the form of documentation or witness testimony, is a trite principle of protection law: see most recently MAH (Egypt) [2023] EWCA Civ 216. This claim therefore requires further consideration.

13. The structure of the decision is methodical. Under the heading ‘Assessment of evidence’ the Tribunal considers in turn the weight to be given to the Appellant’s oral evidence, his screening interview, the asylum interview, the Appellant’s three witness statements and then, finally, ‘the lack of documentary evidence from Iran’. There the Tribunal rejects as not credible the Appellant’s evidence that he and his family did not take care to ensure that they had each other’s details; it suggests that he could be using social media, or alternatively “Kurds from that area in the UK” to try and resume contact with his family. This paragraph closes with the following:

“I find that the appellant has not given a credible explanation as to why he is not in contact with his family in Iran. No evidence has been provided that the authorities are looking for him in Iran, or have or have ever looked for him in Iran”.

14. I pause to note that these concluding sentences are relevant to two separate issues: the absence of evidence from the Appellant’s family, or rather whether there is a good reason for that absence, and the lack of documentary evidence relating to any investigation by the Iranian authorities. I can say immediately, without going any further, that in the latter respect at least, the Tribunal has erred. I accept Mr Greer’s submission that it was virtually inconceivable that the Appellant or his family could have accessed any ‘confirmation’ from the Iranian authorities in these circumstances. As such it was unfair, and contrary to logic, to draw negative inference from the lack of documentary ‘proof’.

15. Returning to the First-tier Tribunal decision and its structure, the next heading is ‘Findings of Fact and Assessment of Evidence’. Under this heading the Tribunal makes clear findings under the sub-headings of nationality, area origin and age; the appellant’s account of being at risk from the Iranian authorities, and illegal exit from Iran. There is then the ‘global conclusion on all aspects of the appellant’s claim’, and for good measure an ‘overall decision on the asylum claim’. It is in these sections of the determination that the Tribunal returns to matters pertaining to the Appellant’s family. At paragraphs 33 and 34 (set out above) the focus is entirely on the fact, as the Tribunal has it, that “The appellant’s fear of persecution is derived therefore entirely from hearsay from people who cannot be challenged as to the accuracy of what they told the appellant”, namely the Appellant’s mother and cousin.

16. I agree with Mr Greer that the Tribunal does appear, here, to have drawn negative inference from the lack of direct corroboration. In view of the prominence of these passages to the overall reasoning, I also agree that this was plainly material to the Tribunal’s overall conclusion: without such direct evidence, it was not prepared to accept that there was a real risk of harm to the Appellant. The Tribunal nowhere stood back and asked itself why the Appellant’s mother or cousin might have acted as they did. It is of course possible that the Appellant’s father has been arrested for something completely unrelated to politics, and that the family, driven by paranoia, completely overreacted by dispatching the Appellant as they did. In the context of the lower standard of proof, what the Appellant himself knew about his father’s activities, and the prevailing conditions in Iran, it was at least equally possible that the family’s worst fears were correct. I am accordingly satisfied that this ground of appeal is also made out.

17. At its §35-§38 the Tribunal considers the country background material, and country guidance, on Kurds in Iran: HB (Kurds) Iran CG [2018] 00430 (IAC). There, in summary, it finds the evidence to suggest that had the Appellant’s father been suspected of KDPI activity the authorities would, simultaneously with his arrest, have raided his home and shop, and detained, or at least subjected to scrutiny, close family members. Since none of that happened, the Tribunal deduces that the Appellant’s father was not in fact arrested on suspicion of KDPI activity. Key to its reasoning is the following: “From HB (Iran) therefore I find there is no graded approach depending on the alleged activity: all Kurdish activities are viewed with suspicion and the reaction of the authorities is likely to be extreme whatever the activity is”.

18. Mr Greer characterises this reasoning as the Tribunal having employed a ‘straw man fallacy’. The Tribunal has described how it imagines the Iranian state would behave; because the Appellant’s narrative does not match the imagined scenario, the Tribunal finds that the account cannot be true. Mr Greer submits that there was no evidential basis for the Tribunal’s findings on how the Iranian state might react in these circumstances. Whilst it is true that they will very often react with ruthless violence, and that they might cast their nets wide in rooting out separatist activity, there was no evidence before the Tribunal to indicate that in each and every case of a suspect being arrested, this is accompanied by simultaneous raids and the rounding up of family members. In fact, the evidence was to the contrary. In, for instance, the Country Policy and Information Note (May 2022) Kurdish Political Groups the evidence was to the effect that family member of activists “may” be targeted [14.6.2] and that “the targeting of individuals is arbitrary and varies from case to case” [14.6].

19. I accept that this ground is made out. The numerous reports and cases about the state of human rights in Iran are indeed damning, but there was nothing before the Tribunal to indicate that the security forces follow the same course of action in every case, or that they would inevitably have raided the father’s shop. The country guidance to which the Tribunal refers itself, HB (Kurds), was primarily concerned with the position of Kurds on arrival in Tehran, rather than ‘on the ground’, and I can see nothing therein to support the First-tier Tribunal’s reading of it that there is “no graded approach” to the activity of Kurds. Whilst we can say that the state is always likely to react badly to Kurdish political or cultural opposition to the regime, as a matter of logic each investigation is likely to be different in terms of timing and approach, depending on the nature of it, the available resources and the personnel involved.

Decision and Directions

20. The decision is set aside for error of law with no findings preserved.

21. The parties invite me, in these circumstances, to remit the matter to the First-tier Tribunal to be remade de novo.

22. There is currently an order for anonymity in this ongoing protection appeal.

Upper Tribunal Judge Bruce
Immigration and Asylum Chamber
20 August 2025