Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM
CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-000204

First-tier Tribunal No: PA/57053/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On the 12 August 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE MANDALIA
DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE BURNS

Between

Secretary of State for the Home Department
Appellant
and

BM
(ANONYMITY DIRECTION MADE)
Respondent

Representation
For the Appellant: Ms H Masih of Counsel
For the Respondent: Ms R Arif, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Birmingham Civil Justice Centre on 14 July 2025

Decision and Reasons

Order Regarding 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.

Introduction
1. The Appellant in the appeal before us is the Secretary of State for the Home Department (“SSHD”) and the Respondent to this appeal is BM. For clarity however, we refer to the parties as they were before the First-tier Tribunal.
2. The Appellant is a national of Iran and of Kurdish ethnicity. He arrived in the United Kingdom on 22 March 2022 and claimed asylum on the following day. His claim was refused by the Respondent on 6 March 2024. The Appellant’s appeal was allowed by First-tier Tribunal (“FtT”) Judge Hawden-Beal (“the Judge”) for reasons set out in a decision promulgated on 18 November 2024.
3. The Respondent was granted permission to appeal to the Upper Tribunal by FtT Judge Thomas on 16 January 2025. The appeal was heard by Upper Tribunal Judge Hanson and Deputy Upper Tribunal Judge Hughes on 20 May 2025 and for reasons set out in an ‘error of law’ decision issued on 2 June 2025, they set aside the decision of the FtT to the extent identified at paragraphs 15 and 16 in their decision.
4. It is in that context that the appeal was listed for hearing before us to remake the decision in the appeal.
5. Although we are determining matters afresh the following findings were unchallenged and have been preserved as set out in paragraph [18] of the ‘error of law decision’.
(i) The Appellant is an Iranian national, of Kurdish ethnicity, who had worked as a kolbar in Iran before leaving illegally.
(ii) The Appellant has been involved in sur place activities, attending demonstrations in the United Kingdom. He has been a low-level participant who would not have come to the attention of the Iranian authorities because of those activities.
(iii) The Appellant was not a person of significant interest in Iran, or in the United Kingdom by reason of the activity on his Facebook account. If he were returned to Iran, it would not be unreasonable for him to delete his Facebook account.
6. With regard to the preserved findings (ii) and (iii) and mindful that this is a protection claim we considered afresh whether the post decision attendance at demonstrations and the Facebook activity would mean that the Appellant was now a person of significant interest in Iran and whether it would be unreasonable for him to delete his Facebook account. We had regard to the Supplementary Bundle received on 4 July 2025 which included the Appellant’s supplementary witness statement dated 27 June 2025 and an edited account of his Facebook download and Facebook screenshots.
The Issues to be determined
7. There were two limbs to the Appellant’s claim for international protection which had to be determined.
8. Firstly, he claims that he will be at risk upon return because he had come to the adverse attention of the Iranian authorities pre-flight. This is relevant because if he had a pre-existing profile then this may put him at risk on return because he would face enhanced scrutiny on arrival in Iran.
9. The second limb is the Appellant’s sur place activities. These activities are restricted to attending demonstrations and Facebook activity.
Remaking the Decision
10. The Appellant has appealed under s82(1) of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 against the decision of the Respondent to refuse his claim for asylum and humanitarian protection. The Appellant claims to be a refugee whose removal from the UK would breach the United Kingdom’s obligations under the 1951 Refugee Convention.
11. The Appellant made his claim for international protection on 23 March 2022. Sections 31-36 of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 only apply in an appeal where the claim for international protection was made after 28 June 2022, and do not apply here. The Appellant therefore bears the burden of proving that he falls within the definition of “refugee.” In essence, the Appellant has to establish that there are substantial grounds for believing, more simply expressed as a ‘real risk,’ that he is outside of his country of nationality, because of a well-founded fear of persecution for a refugee convention reason and he is unable or unwilling, because of such fear, to avail himself of the protection of that country.
12. It is uncontroversial that the Appellant is an Iranian national, of Kurdish ethnicity. It was not disputed that the refugee convention was engaged if the Appellant’s account was accepted because he would be at risk because of his imputed political opinion.
13. Although the Judge had erred in law by failing to give adequate reasons why the Appellant’s right to work as a kolbar was an immutable characteristic protected under the Convention (see paragraph 15 of the ‘error of law’ decision) this was not a feature in the appeal before us. It was accepted that if the Appellant’s account was credible then he would be a refugee on account of his imputed political opinion.
14. The Appellant’s representatives submitted that the Appellant had been found by the FtT to be a credible witness (see paragraph 2i of the Submission dated 11 July 2025) and that the finding should not be disturbed. The FtT decision was set aside in its entirety save for the preserved findings set out above. It therefore follows that in the rehearing before us it is incumbent upon us to make our own assessment of the credibility of the Appellant’s account.
15. We have had the opportunity of hearing the Appellant give evidence and seeing that evidence tested in cross-examination. Matters of credibility are never easy to determine, particularly, as here, where the evidence is received through an interpreter. We acknowledge that there may be a danger of misinterpretation, but we were satisfied that the Appellant understood the questions asked, and the interpreter had a proper opportunity to translate the answers provided by him. In reaching our decision we have been careful not to find any part of the account relied upon, to be inherently incredible, because of our own views on what is or is not plausible. We have considered the claims made by the Appellant and the story as a whole, against the available country evidence and other familiar factors, such as consistency with what has been said before, and the documents relied upon.
The Re-Hearing of the Appeal
16. The Appellant relied upon additional evidence in relation to his sur place activities to demonstrate he has continued his sur place activities following the hearing before the FtT. The Appellant relied on a Supplementary Bundle which had not been served on the Respondent and the appeal was briefly stood down to give Ms Arif the opportunity to consider it.
17. The Appellant adopted his witness statements dated 18 June 2024 and 27 June 2025 as being true and correct save for an amendment at paragraph 4 (statement 27 June 2025) which was corrected so that it would read “Although I managed to escape, the Etalaat had found out that I was smuggling weapons and alcohol and they raided my house” and not “when they raided my house”.
18. The Appellant answered questions put by Ms Arif and by us by way of clarification before being re-examined by Ms Masih. That evidence is not summarised at this juncture. It was digitally recorded and our findings in relation to that evidence is set out below.
19. Both representatives made submissions which again are not summarised. They were recorded and translated to the Appellant and considered by us before we made our decision.
20. In reaching our decision we have had regard to all the evidence before us both oral and written, whether or not it is referred to.
Our Findings
Events in Iran
21. Central to the Appellant’s account is that he was ambushed by the Iranian authorities when the Etalaat found out that he was smuggling weapons and alcohol. He claims that his house was raised following the ‘ambush’ and that he will be at risk upon return because of the interest the authorities have in him. We found that the Appellant’s account of being ambushed whilst he was smuggling weapons to be so inconsistent that it was not at all credible.
22. His oral evidence before us on 15 July 2025 was considerably at odds with what he said in his asylum interview on 10 November 2023. When the inconsistencies were put to him, he said that his oral evidence was correct. Ms Masih submitted that giving evidence “is not a memory test” and we were mindful that the passage of time can cloud memory, but this is not what is said here. The Appellant said that his later evidence is correct and not the earlier account (in his asylum interview). He did not say, nor did we find, that his answers at interview on 10 November 2023 had been incorrectly translated. We found that his account changed because he was not providing a truthful account of what happened before he left Iran.
23. At the hearing the Appellant said that when he was smuggling in Iran, he knew that he had been ambushed by the Etalaat because they could be recognised by their uniform. However, in the asylum interview he said that he could not see them. In response to question 80 he had said “I did not see them myself”. This is inconsistent with his evidence that he recognised who he had been ambushed by because of the uniform being worn.
24. In the asylum interview in response to question 76 the Appellant said that after the ambush “I went to my uncles, and I told my uncle everything and my uncle told me to go on that car towards his friends”. However, in his oral evidence the Appellant said that after the ambush he headed towards a valley and after one hour he contacted his uncle and was told not to return home. He also said that two hours following the ambush his uncle collected him. The Appellant’s account of event immediately following the ambush, is inconsistent. In one version of events the Appellant had gone to his uncle’s home and in the later version, he had not gone to his uncle’s home but headed towards a valley. This is not something that the Appellant would become muddled about due to the passage of time.
25. The Appellant has also given an inconsistent account of how he found out that one of the smuggling group had been arrested. In his asylum interview he said that his friend “was the only person who told me about Ibrahim being arrested” (question 84). In his oral evidence he said that his uncle told him that Ibrahim had been arrested. When he was asked to explain the apparent inconsistency, he said that both accounts were the same because his uncle was his friend. We did not accept that this was a truthful account. He had previously referred to his maternal uncle as “uncle” and there was no obvious reason why at that point he would refer to him as a “friend”. Even if that were so it would not explain the response to question 85 which was an explanation of how he found out that Ibrahim had been arrested. He said that after the ambush he was walking slowly but he was told to start running because Ibrahim had been arrested. The account would make no sense if the person (who told him about Ibrahim’s arrest) was the Appellant’s uncle because it was the Appellant’s account that his uncle was not one of the four people in the smuggling gang. He had never said that his uncle was at the ambush. When he was cross examined about this, he then said that he didn’t say that at interview. We did not find that this was a truthful answer. He had not said that this part of the interview was inaccurate before. We found that he said this when it became apparent that his account was full of contradictions.
26. The Appellant said that he decided to flee from Iran when he learnt that his house had been raided by the Etalaat. In his oral evidence he said that he learned that his house was raided the following day in the afternoon. Despite being asked several times when the raid had occurred, he did not provide a definitive answer. He said that he believed the raid had happened about the time of the phone call. In his asylum interview he had said that his uncle called him to say that his house had been raided (question 86). He said that they raided the house “at 12am in the night they raided my house” (question 88). When asked about his answers in interview about the timing of the raid he said that he couldn’t recall that answer because it had been a while since the interview.
27. We did not find that there were any credible reasons for the significant changes in the Appellant’s account. It was particularly telling that his account changed very significantly about where he went after the ambush. The passage of time would not explain away the difference between going to his uncle’s house after the ambush and getting to a safe place to await his uncle who would collect him and take him to the border. During his oral evidence he then gave a further account of someone else taking him to a safe place and not his uncle who he then said he has not seen since the night of the ambush.
28. Drawing all this together, the Appellant has provided several different accounts of how he knew who had ambushed the smuggling gang, what happened after the ambush, how he found out his friend had been arrested and the assistance given by his uncle after the ambush. These events lie at the heart of the Appellant’s reasons for fleeing and if the Appellant’s account were true, he would have a very clear recollection. We concluded that the account given by the Appellant was full of inconsistencies because it was not a truthful account of events. Although being involved in an ambush would, as submitted by Ms Masih, be a chaotic situation it cannot explain away the fact that the Appellant has been significantly inconsistent about what happened after he said that he fled from the ambush. His credibility is so damaged that we did not accept his account of the ambush and the raid on his home.
29. There was no dispute that the Appellant was a kolbar and he smuggled goods into Iran.
30. We find that he was not ambushed by the Iranian Authorities (Etalaat or others) whilst smuggling weapons as alleged. He did not have a friend called Ibrahim who was arrested and therefore the Appellant’s name was not given to the Iranian Authorities by Ibrahim. His home was not raided on account of his smuggling.
31. The Appellant is not a person who was known to the Iranian Authorities on account of his smuggling activities or otherwise. We find the Appellant’s account of the events leading to his departure from Iran is entirely fabricated.
Sur Place Activities
DEMONSTRATIONS
32. There was a preserved finding that “the Appellant has been involved in sur place activities, attending demonstrations in the United Kingdom. He has been a low-level participant who would not have come to the attention of the Iranian authorities because of those activities.”
33. There is nothing in the evidence before us that undermines those preserved findings. By the time of the hearing before us the Appellant had attended more demonstrations. This was now nine demonstrations in total (see paragraph 17 of the witness statement dated 27 June 2025).
34. However, it is necessary to consider this in the context of whether his attendance represented a genuinely held political belief.
35. In his oral account the Appellant did not give an account of attending the demonstrations which would accord with someone doing so because of their strongly held political beliefs. He said in his oral evidence that he didn’t know who had organised the demonstrations. His evidence was vague. He said that he attended because they were demonstrations organised against the Iranian regime, but he did not expand on this.
36. The Appellant was not involved in organising the demonstrations. He did not even know who had organised them. His involvement included holding a placard with anti-regime sentiment and then posting a photograph of this on his Facebook account.
Facebook
37. There is a preserved finding that “the Appellant was not a person of significant interest in Iran, or in the United Kingdom by reason of the activity on his Facebook account. If he were returned to Iran, it would not be unreasonable for him to delete his Facebook account”.
38. The Appellant had a Facebook account when he was living in Iran although he didn’t post much. He said that his posting was restricted to posting pictures of nature and flowers. He said that he had forgotten his login details and so opened a new account when he came to the UK. He set the account up himself in the UK on 13 January 2023 (supplementary bundle page 7). He said that the setting was public, and he had 4000 friends. He confirmed that he would close the account if he was forced to return to Iran.
39. Again, the issue is whether his sur place activity of posting political messages on Facebook represent his genuinely held political beliefs.
40. We considered the evidence about the Facebook account in light of In XX (PJAK - sur place activities - Facebook) Iran CG [2022] UKUT 00023 (IAC), wherein the Upper Tribunal provided some general guidance on social media evidence:
“127. Social media evidence is often limited to production of printed photographs, without full disclosure in electronic format. Production of a small part of a Facebook or social media account, for example, photocopied photographs, may be of very limited evidential value in a protection claim, when such a wealth of wider information, including a person’s locations of access to Facebook and full timeline of social media activities, readily available on the “Download Your Information” function of Facebook in a matter of moments, has not been disclosed.
128. It is easy for an apparent printout or electronic excerpt of an internet page to be manipulated by changing the page source data. For the same reason, where a decision maker does not have access to an actual account, purported printouts from such an account may also have very limited evidential value.
41. In his witness statement dated 27 June 2025 the Appellant explained that he posts on Facebook about 5 times a week (paragraph 30) in Kurdish, English and Farsi (paragraph 22). He says that his posts encourage others to condemn the Iranian authorities (paragraph 19) because of the treatment of Kurdish people in Iran (see paragraph 28). He said that his account is public (paragraph 22) and that his posts are liked, commented on and shared (paragraph 23).
42. There is an extract of the Facebook account in the Supplementary Bundle. The Appellant’s profile page can be found at page 62. This shows that the Appellant has 4154 “friends”. It does not include any information about his personal details and or whether his account is public or private. Page 70 shows a photograph of the Appellant holding a photograph with an image which is anti-regime. He set that photograph to be his profile picture.
43. Although the Appellant said that he had 4000 Facebook friends, we find that it is unlikely that he would know them all personally. He speculated that say 5 of these “friends” could in fact be spies for the Iranian Authorities.
44. We find that the Appellant had accessed his Facebook profile information on 24 October 2024 (see page 7 of the Supplementary Bundle). It shows that the account was registered (set up) on 13 January 2023. We find that what had been provided to the Tribunal in the evidence before us in the Supplementary Bundle is an edited account of his Facebook account. This was conceded by Ms Masih. For example, at page 8 there is a mobile upload from 20 October 2024, but the corresponding entry does not appear in the later ‘posts’ section. It is not clear from the way that the written evidence has been presented that the mobile uploads at pages 8-11 were from this Appellant’s Facebook account.
45. We find that we had not been provided with the evidence from Facebook about whether the settings were public or private throughout the life of the account. The Appellant said that the account was public. Ms Masih said that there was enough to infer that the account was public because a globe icon appeared next to the Appellant’s posts and given the number of Facebook friends had increased to 4000 it was reasonably likely that he had acquired those friends because his account was on a public setting.
46. Page 8 shows that data is included from 1 January 2004 to 22 October 2024. This data is described as “photos, videos, text and status updates that you’ve shared on Facebook”. This includes a description of attendance at demonstrations (page 8), details of an Iranian who was kidnapped by Iranian republic forces (page 11), photographs of a young lady with facial injuries with text which is not written in or translated into English (page 12). It is not possible to understand most of what has been posted because it is not accompanied by a translation. The posts have been commented on see for example the post which is dated 14 May at page 19 which has 56 comments. It is not possible to deduce what the post is about (there is no translation) and what comments were made (they have not been provided).
47. However, it is apparent just from looking at the posts of photographs that they do not support the Iranian Regime. For example, the photograph at page 20 shows the Iranian flag crossed through, a hangman’s noose and the words “No to the Islamic Republic of Iran”.
48. We find that the Facebook evidence was unsatisfactory. As conceded by Ms Masih, the evidence represents an edited account of his Facebook activity and as per paragraph 127 of XX we attach only limited weight to it as evidence of a genuinely held political belief. Ms Masih referred us to the asylum interview wherein the Appellant had said that he was illiterate. This was not consistent with his oral evidence that he set the account up himself and posted in English, Farsi and Kurdish.
49. We accept that the Appellant does operate a Facebook account which he set up whilst in the UK. We find that he set up his Facebook account with the sole purpose of posting anti Iranian material, this is mostly but not exclusively photographs, some of the photographs are of him at demonstrations. There is a lack of evidence that he has engaged in liking posts from others who post anti-Iranian or pro-Kurdish sentiment.
50. We did not find that there is sufficient evidence for us to conclude that the Appellant’s Facebook account was on a public setting throughout the life of the account. Although the Appellant said the setting was public his evidence generally lacked credibility. When making this finding we were mindful of paragraph 127 of XX that only limited weight could be afforded to the edited and incomplete Facebook material that we had been supplied with.
Conclusions – Sur Place Activities
51. Standing back and considering all the evidence in the round, we find that the Appellant has not shown to the lower standard that his attendance at demonstrations and his Facebook posts reflect his genuine political opinion and beliefs. We find that they were an attempt to bolster his otherwise weak claim for international protection.
52. In reaching this conclusion we placed weight on the following matters. The Appellant has not joined any pro-Kurdish political parties, which he could do freely in the UK. He did not appear to engage with what was happening at the demonstrations other than say holding a placard. His Facebook posts do not appear in the main to be much more than posting photographs. We were not shown that he had posted political sentiment in response to posts by his 4000 or so friends. It cannot be said that illiteracy prevented him from doing so because he told us that he was able to post in Farsi, Kurdish and English.
53. Accordingly, we find that the Appellant does not hold genuine political beliefs as he claims. He had told us, and we accept that he would delete his UK Facebook account if returned to Iran. In the absence of genuinely held political beliefs it is not unreasonable to expect that he would do this.
Risk On Return
54. The Appellant would therefore be returned to Iran with the following matters not in dispute. He is of Kurdish ethnicity and exited illegally. Prior to his exit he worked as a kolbar. According to our findings he had not come to the adverse attention of the Iranian Authorities whilst he was in Iran because we found that he had not shown to the lower standard of proof that he was ambushed by those working for the Iranian Authorities and he has not shown that his house was raided. According to our findings he has attended some demonstrations and has operated a Facebook account which he could delete. There is not a reasonable likelihood that either of these sur place activities have come to the attention of the Iranian Authorities.
55. We have considered whether these factors would result in a risk of persecution on return.
56. The conclusions reached by the Upper Tribunal in XX (PJAK, sur place activities, Facebook) (CG) are summarised in the headnotes:
“The cases of BA (Demonstrators in Britain – risk on return) Iran CG [2011] UKUT 36 (IAC); SSH and HR (illegal exit: failed asylum seeker) Iran CG [2016] UKUT 00308 (IAC); and HB (Kurds) Iran CG [2018] UKUT 00430 continue accurately to reflect the situation for returnees to Iran. That guidance is hereby supplemented on the issue of risk on return arising from a person’s social media use (in particular, Facebook) and surveillance of that person by the authorities in Iran.
Surveillance
1) There is a disparity between, on the one hand, the Iranian state’s claims as to what it has been, or is, able to do to control or access the electronic data of its citizens who are in Iran or outside it; and on the other, its actual capabilities and extent of its actions. There is a stark gap in the evidence, beyond assertions by the Iranian government that Facebook accounts have been hacked and are being monitored. The evidence fails to show it is reasonably likely that the Iranian authorities are able to monitor, on a large scale, Facebook accounts.    More focussed, ad hoc searches will necessarily be more labour-intensive and are therefore confined to individuals who are of significant adverse interest.   The risk that an individual is targeted will be a nuanced one. Whose Facebook accounts will be targeted, before they are deleted, will depend on a person’s existing profile and where they fit onto a “social graph;” and the extent to which they or their social network may have their Facebook material accessed.
2) The likelihood of Facebook material being available to the Iranian authorities is affected by whether the person is or has been at any material time a person of significant interest, because if so, they are, in general, reasonably likely to have been the subject of targeted Facebook surveillance. In the case of such a person, this would mean that any additional risks that have arisen by creating a Facebook account containing material critical of, or otherwise inimical to, the Iranian authorities would not be mitigated by the closure of that account, as there is a real risk that the person would already have been the subject of targeted on-line surveillance, which is likely to have made the material known.
3) Where an Iranian national of any age returns to Iran, the fact of them not having a Facebook account, or having deleted an account, will not as such raise suspicions or concerns on the part of Iranian authorities.
4) A returnee from the UK to Iran who requires a laissez-passer, or an emergency travel document (ETD) needs to complete an application form and submit it to the Iranian embassy in London. They are required to provide their address and telephone number, but not an email address or details of a social media account. While social media details are not asked for, the point of applying for an ETD is likely to be the first potential “pinch point, ” referred to in AB and Others (internet activity – state of evidence) Iran [2015] UKUT 00257 (IAC).   It is not realistic to assume that internet searches will not be carried out until a person’s arrival in Iran. Those applicants for ETDs provide an obvious pool of people, in respect of whom basic searches (such as open internet searches) are likely to be carried out.
Guidance on Facebook more generally
5) There are several barriers to monitoring, as opposed to ad hoc searches of someone’s Facebook material. There is no evidence before us that the Facebook website itself has been “hacked,” whether by the Iranian or any other government. The effectiveness of website “crawler” software, such as Google, is limited, when interacting with Facebook. Someone’s name and some details may crop up on a Google search, if they still have a live Facebook account, or one that has only very recently been closed; and provided that their Facebook settings or those of their friends or groups with whom they have interactions, have public settings.   Without the person’s password, those seeking to monitor Facebook accounts cannot “scrape” them in the same unautomated way as other websites allow automated data extraction.    A person’s email account or computer may be compromised, but it does not necessarily follow that their Facebook password account has been accessed.
6) The timely closure of an account neutralises the risk consequential on having had a “critical” Facebook account, provided that someone’s Facebook account was not specifically monitored prior to closure.
Guidance on social media evidence generally
7) Social media evidence is often limited to production of printed photographs, without full disclosure in electronic format.   Production of a small part of a Facebook or social media account, for example, photocopied photographs, may be of very limited evidential value in a protection claim, when such a wealth of wider information, including a person’s locations of access to Facebook and full timeline of social media activities, readily available on the “Download Your Information” function of Facebook in a matter of moments, has not been disclosed.
8) It is easy for an apparent printout or electronic excerpt of an internet page to be manipulated by changing the page source data. For the same reason, where a decision maker does not have access to an actual account, purported printouts from such an account may also have very limited evidential value.
9) In deciding the issue of risk on return involving a Facebook account, a decision maker may legitimately consider whether a person will close a Facebook account and not volunteer the fact of a previously closed Facebook account, prior to application for an ETD: HJ (Iran) v SSHD [2011] AC 596. Decision makers are allowed to consider first, what a person will do to mitigate a risk of persecution, and second, the reason for their actions.    It is difficult to see circumstances in which the deletion of a Facebook account could equate to persecution, as there is no fundamental right protected by the Refugee Convention to have access to a particular social media platform, as opposed to the right to political neutrality.   Whether such an inquiry is too speculative needs to be considered on a case-by-case basis.”
57. In XX it was found that there was a real risk that the Appellant had been the subject of targeted (as opposed to general) surveillance, and this was because he had been photographed with a prominent person. It was said that he had done enough to draw attention to himself before the ETD pinch point (paragraph 118 XX). This was not analogous to the Appellant in the appeal before us. We found that he had not shown a real risk that he would have become a person of interest to the Authorities when he attended demonstrations or by his posting on Facebook. It was not said, nor could we find that the Appellant’s Facebook had been hacked. He said that say 5 of his friends could be “Iranian spies”. We find this to be speculative. He did not say that any of his Facebook friends were persons of significant interest. It was not said that any of these friends had public settings on their Facebook accounts. He did not have a profile such that he would be a person of interest as per headnote 1 because such monitoring is “confined to individuals who are of significant adverse interest” which would not include this Appellant.
58. We find that the Appellant does not have a profile that would put him at any greater risk than any other Kurd returning to Iran as a failed asylum seeker. The Appellant has not shown to the lower standard that he is at real risk of ill treatment on account of his illegal exit, the fact he is a failed asylum seeker, the fact he was a kolbar and the fact that he is a Kurd. Our finding is entirely in keeping with the position of the Kurdish Appellants in SSH and HR (illegal exit: failed asylum seeker) Iran CG [2016] UKUT 00308 (IAC) the Upper Tribunal held:
“1. An Iranian male whom it is sought to return to Iran, who does not possess a passport, will be returnable on a laissez passer, which he can obtain from the Iranian Embassy on proof of identity and nationality;
2. An Iranian male in respect of whom no adverse interest has previously been manifested by the Iranian State does not face a real risk of persecution/breach of his Article 3 rights on return to Iran on account of having left Iran illegally and/or being a failed asylum seeker. No such risk exists at the time of questioning on return to Iran nor after the facts (i.e. of illegal exit and being a failed asylum seeker) have been established. In particular, there is not a real risk of prosecution leading to imprisonment.”
59. We have considered the fact of the Appellant’s Kurdish ethnicity in light of HB (Kurds) Iran CG [2018] UKUT 00430 and the heightened scrutiny he could expect to encounter on return (headnote 3).
60. The Upper Tribunal provided the following guidance:
(4) However, the mere fact of being a returnee of Kurdish ethnicity with or without a valid passport, and even if combined with illegal exit, does not create a risk of persecution or Article 3 ill-treatment.
(5) Kurdish ethnicity is nevertheless a risk factor which, when combined with other factors, may create a real risk of persecution or Article 3 ill-treatment. Being a risk factor it means that Kurdish ethnicity is a factor of particular significance when assessing risk. Those “other factors” will include the matters identified in paragraphs (6)-(9) below.
(6) A period of residence in the KRI by a Kurdish returnee is reasonably likely to result in additional questioning by the authorities on return. However, this is a factor that will be highly fact-specific and the degree of interest that such residence will excite will depend, non-exhaustively, on matters such as the length of residence in the KRI, what the person concerned was doing there and why they left.
(7) Kurds involved in Kurdish political groups or activity are at risk of arrest, prolonged detention and physical abuse by the Iranian authorities. Even Kurds expressing peaceful dissent or who speak out about Kurdish rights also face a real risk of persecution or Article 3 ill-treatment.
(8) Activities that can be perceived to be political by the Iranian authorities include social welfare and charitable activities on behalf of Kurds. Indeed, involvement with any organised activity on behalf of or in support of Kurds can be perceived as political and thus involve a risk of adverse attention by the Iranian authorities with the consequent risk of persecution or Article 3 ill-treatment.
(9) Even ‘low-level’ political activity, or activity that is perceived to be political, such as, by way of example only, mere possession of leaflets espousing or supporting Kurdish rights, if discovered, involves the same risk of persecution or Article 3 ill-treatment. Each case however, depends on its own facts and an assessment will need to be made as to the nature of the material possessed and how it would be likely to be viewed by the Iranian authorities in the context of the foregoing guidance.
(10) The Iranian authorities demonstrate what could be described as a ‘hair-trigger’ approach to those suspected of or perceived to be involved in Kurdish political activities or support for Kurdish rights. By ‘hair-trigger’ it means that the threshold for suspicion is low and the reaction of the authorities is reasonably likely to be extreme.”
61. The Appellant had not resided in the KRI (6) and we find that he had not been involved in Kurdish political groups (7-9). He has posted on Facebook and attended demonstrations, but we have found he does not hold genuine political beliefs and it is unlikely (even applying the lower standard) that he has come to the attention of the Iranian Authorities. When considering the pinch point at which the Appellant will come into contact with the Authorities in Iran when he is returned, he is likely to be questioned. We have found that he will not have come to the attention of the Authorities before this time and so they will not be aware of the substance of the Appellant’s asylum claim or his sur place activities. We find that the Authorities will not have accessed the Appellant’s Facebook account and we find that the Appellant would have deleted his UK Facebook account by then. There is therefore no reason why the Authorities would perceive that the Appellant supports or has been involved in support for Kurdish rights.
62. The Appellant’s representatives referred (at page 35 Composite Bundle) to the Country Policy and Information Note Iran: Illegal Exit Version 6.0 May 2022 paragraph 3.3.10. which is about watchlists which the Authorities maintain. We have found that this is not a relevant consideration in this appeal. The Appellant will not be on a watch list because he would not have come to the attention of the Authorities either whilst in Iran or due to his sur place activities.
63. In the skeleton argument before the FtT, the Appellant’s representative asserted that the Appellant would be at risk on return if it is accepted that the Appellant had come to the adverse attention of the Iranian Authorities (see paragraph 26). However, we have found that the Appellant had not come to the attention of the Authorities, so this is no longer relevant. At paragraph 8 of the Submission dated 11 July 2025 the Appellant’s representative submits that at the pinch pint on return the Appellant would be forced to disclose that he worked as a kolbar. They refer to the CPIN Iran: Smugglers February 2022. At paragraph 2.4.7 it confirms that “Persons who have been involved in smuggling are likely to face prosecution”. We found that there was some force in Ms Arif’s submission that the Appellant would not feel obliged to disclose his work as a kolbar because it is an illegal occupation and therefore it would be irrational for him to feel compelled to admit to illegal activity. We found that the Appellant would not need to disclose his past work as a kolbar. On the findings we have made, the Authorities will have no information about the Appellant’s activities as a kolbar. If asked about whether he had worked as a kolbar it would be a matter for the Appellant as to how he would reply and if he felt it prudent to deny it, then this would not breach the HJ Iran principle.
64. Therefore, having considered all of the evidence the Appellant has failed to show to the lower standard that he would be at risk on return. He is therefore not entitled to refugee status. It follows that his humanitarian claim and his claim under Article 3 ECHR will similarly fail.
Notice of Decision
65. The Appellant’s appeal on asylum, humanitarian protection and Article 3 grounds is dismissed.

C Burns
Deputy Upper Tribunal Judge Burns

Deputy Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

24 July 2025