Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-003018

First-tier Tribunal No: PA/50447/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 3 November 2025

Before

DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE R FRANTZIS

Between

AA
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Miss S Khan (Counsel)
For the Respondent: Mr M Diwnycz (Senior Home Office Presenting Officer)

Heard at Phoenix House (Bradford) on 8 October 2025

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 or his family, likely to lead members of the public to identify them. Failure to comply with this order could amount to a contempt of court.

DECISION AND REASONS
Introduction
1. I have decided to maintain the anonymity order in these proceedings. The underlying claim involves international protection issues in that the Appellant claims to fear persecution or serious harm on return to Iran. In reaching this decision, I am mindful of the fundamental principle of open justice, but am satisfied, taking the Appellant’s case at its highest for these purposes, that the potential grave risks outweigh the rights of the public to know of his identity.
2. The Secretary of State appeals with permission against the decision, dated 1st June 2025 (“the Decision”), of the First-tier Tribunal (“FtT”) to allow the Appellant’s appeal on Refugee Convention grounds. For ease, the Parties are referred to in these proceedings as they were before the FtT.
Background
3. The broad factual background to the appeal is not in dispute between the Parties. In brief summary, the Appellant asserts that he would be at risk on return to Iran due to the combination of his Kurdish ethnicity, illegal exit from Iran and adverse political beliefs. It was accepted before the FtT that the Appellant is an Iranian national and that he has been attending demonstrations and posting political material adverse to the Iranian authorities on his Facebook account.
Appeal to the First-tier Tribunal
4. The FtT, in allowing the appeal, made the following findings of fact in respect of the Appellant’s attendance at demonstrations in the United Kingdom:
a. The level of involvement of the Appellant, as set out above, shows that he did not have any organisational or leadership role. He did not address the crowd and was not in a prominent position on, for example, a platform, with those who did [19]
b. there is no cogent and reliable evidence that he will have been identified as an attendee at any of them. [19]
5. Of the Facebook posts, the FtT found:
a. posts of adverse political material on the Internet appear to be mainly political conversations with others as opposed to predominantly political articles critical of the Iranian authorities’ treatment of the population and, in particular, Kurds [20]
6. The FtT then went onto to make the following findings:
a. I conclude he has failed to show that his political activity in the UK reflects his true beliefs and is not a device to create a new basis of appeal not put forward in 2018 [22]
b. Having concluded that the Appellant did not have a pre-existing political profile prior to leaving Iran illegally I find it unlikely that the Iranian authorities will have identified the Appellant due to his attendance at demonstrations and/or his political posts on his FBA to an application for emergency travel documents being made to facilitate his removal to Tehran airport. The Appellant can be expected to close and delete his FBA prior to his removal as no-one has a right to a social media account. [23]
c. I have also carefully considered the guidance provided in the authority of HB (Iran) UKUT 2018 IAC 000430 dealing with the hair trigger approach to returning Kurdish asylum seekers and the fact that it is not in dispute that the Appellant left the country illegally. The authorities will, in my judgment, look carefully at the application for ETD for the Appellant, particularly in light of his Kurdish ethnicity, his illegal exit and the fact that he has been in the UK since 1st October, 2015, a period of almost ten years. [25]
d. The Appellant is not a sophisticated educated young man. He is likely to be singled out for intense questioning on return due to the cumulative effect of the circumstances set out above. Although I have concluded he has failed to show he genuinely holds the political beliefs he has espoused since 2019 I conclude he cannot be expected to lie about the fact that he did possess an FBA and that he posted political views against the Iranian regime and attended demonstrations outside the Iranian Embassy on a number of occasions. In my judgment, the Iranian authorities will not, take into account any claim by him that those are not his genuine views. The authorities, given the very low tolerance they have for political dissent and particularly among the Kurdish minority, will be more likely to regard the mere fact that he posted them and expressed them at demonstrations as justification to detain, imprison and persecuted him on return. [26]
Appeal to the Upper Tribunal
7. The grounds for permission to appeal contend that the FtT has erred in law in the following ways:
a. Ground 1, relying on S v SSHD [2024] EWCA Civ 1482, asserts that the FtT erred in proceeding on the basis that the Appellant could not be expected to lie about his political activities despite having been found to have only engaged in those activities as a “device to create a new basis of appeal” [22] and that they did not reflect his true political beliefs.
b. Ground 2 argues that an error was made in respect of the approach to whether the Appellant could be expected to delete Facebook evidence in light of XX (PJAK - sur place activities - Facebook) Iran CG [2022] UKUT 00023 (IAC).
8. In a decision dated 9th July 2025, a different judge of the FtT granted permission to appeal on both grounds.
9. At the error of law hearing, Mr Diwnycz relied upon the Grounds of Appeal. Miss Khan relied upon the Rule 24 Response. I am grateful to them both for their constructive submissions.
Discussion
10. I can deal with Ground 2 in relatively short order as the advocates did before me. The complaint is that the FtT’s findings at [24] to [26] of the Decision fail to take into account the fact that the Appellant can delete his Facebook account, given that he is found not to hold a genuine political belief. This Ground is not made out for the following reasons:
a. At [23] the FtT expressly finds that the Appellant can be expected to close and delete his Facebook account;
b. At [23] the FtT finds that the Appellant had no pre-existing political profile prior to leaving Iran illegally and that it is unlikely that the Iranian authorities had identified him owing to his Facebook posts or attendance at demonstrations;
c. At [26] the FtT then directs themselves to the authority of XX (PJAK) and takes account of the findings at [23] when assessing the overall risk to the Appellant on return to Tehran airport and concluding that “he cannot be expected to lie about the fact that he did possess an (sic) FBA and that he posted political views against the Iranian regime” [26];
d. Thus, contrary to the assertion in the Grounds of Appeal, the FtT did find as a fact that the Appellant could delete his Facebook account and took account of that finding when assessing the risk to the Appellant on return to Iran.
11. By Ground 1, it is argued that the FtT has materially erred in law by failing to deal with the submission of the Presenting Officer that the risk facing the Appellant on return to Iran should be viewed in light of the findings of the Court of Appeal in S v SSHD. Particular reliance is placed upon [56] therein which provides as follows:
“In contrast, as was pointed out in XX at [99] the Iranian authorities do not persecute individuals because of their political neutrality. Moreover, in the present case, and in the light of both the retained findings and those made by Judge Kebede as to the unlikelihood of the appellant having already come to the attention of the authorities and his lack of genuine political belief in the PJAK, the appellant was not in a position where he would have to prove his political loyalty, rather it would be one in which, as Judge Kebede found, the appellant would not be required to volunteer information about his activities in the UK.”
12. It is argued that the FtT failed to address this submission at all and in light of the findings of the Court of Appeal, it was not open to the FtT to find a risk to Appellant as they did.
13. For the following reasons, I am not with the Secretary of State on this Ground of Appeal:
a. S v SSHD does not establish a legal proposition that those in the Appellant’s position, as found by the FtT, cannot establish a risk on return to Tehran airport. Rather the Court of Appeal in that case was tasked with answering the question of whether the Upper Tribunal had appropriately assessed the risk emanating from the particular activities caried out by that appellant in the UK on the facts of that appeal [44, 57];
b. In the Decision of the FtT the subject of this appeal, the FtT takes account of each of the factors prayed in aid by the Secretary of State when she relies on S v SSHD: (i) the Appellant has not come to the adverse attention of the Iranian authorities [23] (ii) the Appellant’s political activities were not genuinely motivated [22] (iii) the Appellant can delete his Facebook account [23];
c. The FtT directs themselves to the applicable caselaw [24 & 25] and takes account of further specific factual features of the Appellant’s case (i) he is of Kurdish ethnicity (ii) he has been in the United Kingdom for almost 10 years (iii) he is not sophisticated or educated. The FtT was entitled to take each of those factors into account;
d. Having taken into account all of those factors, the FtT finds that this Appellant is reasonably likely to be singled out for intense questioning on return to Tehran airport which will result in his political activity, be it his genuinely held beliefs or not, being extracted from him and result in his being subjected to persecution and/or serious harm [28];
e. The FtT did not find that the Appellant would ‘volunteer’ information, rather that it would be extracted from him under intense questioning;
f. Consistently with HB (Iran) UKUT 2018 IAC 000430 wherein it was stated that the Iranian authorities are suspicious of Kurdish political activity and that Kurds involved in even low-level political activity, if discovered, are at real risk of persecution or Article 3 ill-treatment, the FtT found that the information the Appellant would give would place him at risk. That is consistent with the finding in XX (PJAK) at [103] that “Discovery of material critical of the Iranian regime on Facebook, even if contrived, may make a material difference to the risk faced by someone returning to Iran. The extent of the risk they may face will continue to be fact sensitive. For example, an Iranian person of Kurdish ethnic origin may face a higher risk than the wider population.”
14. I am satisfied that the FtT’s conclusions were open to them on the facts of this appeal, that there is adequate consideration of the risk factors holistically, and that the reasons are sufficient, when read as a whole. The Secretary of State’s appeal therefore fails and is dismissed.

Notice of Decision
The Decision of the FtT did not involve the making of a material error of law and shall stand.
The appeal to this Tribunal is dismissed.

Roxanne Frantzis
Deputy Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

20th October 2025