Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-003699

First-tier Tribunal No: PA/61970/2024
LP/03155/2025

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 11 February 2026

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE OWENS

Between

AT
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr Bahja, Legal representative from Lawmatic Solicitors
For the Respondent: Mr Ojo, Senior Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 10 December 2025

Order Regarding Anonymity

Pursuant to rule 14 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008, the appellant is granted anonymity and is to be referred to as MH because this appeal involves a claim for protection.

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 appeals with permission against a decision of the First-tier Tribunal promulgated on 21 May 2025 dismissing his protection and human rights appeal against a decision by the Secretary of State dated 17 April 2024 refusing both claims.
Background and appellant’s claim
2. The appellant is a national of Bangladesh. He entered the UK on 31 October 2021 as a Tier 4 student with leave until 2028. After being encountered by immigration officials in 2023, his leave was curtailed. He claimed asylum on 13 April 2023.
3. The basis of his claim is that he actively supported the BNP in Bangladesh since 2017 and held the role of convenor for his local Jatiotabadi Chhatra Dal (“JCD”) branch and came from a BNP supporting family. He claims that false criminal charges have been brought against other members of his family, including his father and uncle although there are no criminal charges against himself. He says he was injured in clashes between the BNP/JCD supporters and Awami League (“AL”) supporters in 2018 and 2020 as of a result of which he required medical attention. He and his family have been harassed, victimised and physically attacked by AL and Bangladeshi Chhatra League (“BCL”) members. He has also made negative Facebook posts against the AL whilst in the UK and attended two demonstrations although he has not joined the BNP in the UK. He claims that if he is returned to Bangladesh, that he will be harmed by AL leaders and members in his home area and he cannot relocate elsewhere to avoid hostility. His position is that the regime change in Bangladesh has not made a difference to the risk to him because the law enforcement agencies have traditionally been aligned with AL supporters.
The Respondent’s case
4. I highlight that the decision refusing the asylum claim was prior to the regime change in Bangladesh. Although the respondent accepted that the appellant was a member and supporter of the BNP, it was not accepted that the appellant had a significant adverse profile. It was not accepted that the appellant had been attacked because of his BNP activities and adverse profile. Little weight was placed on the supporting court documents. Section 8 of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants etc) Act 2004 was said to apply because of the delay in claiming asylum. The view of the respondent is that the appellant would be unlikely to be of ongoing interest to the authorities. This was on the basis of the situation when the AL was still in power.
5. On review, the respondent relied on the reasons for refusal letter.
The Judge’s Decision
6. The judge’s findings are set out at [20]. These are that the appellant was a member and a supporter of the BNP which was consistent with the background evidence which is that BNP membership is in the millions. The appellant held some form of organisational role in his local student branch which included attending meetings, following directions of his superiors and “spreading the word”. He was aged 19/20. This was not a high-profile role. He has come into conflict with AL members.
7. At [20iii] the judge did not accept that the appellant had been injured to the extent claimed because of a lack of medical evidence, although the judge accepted that the appellant had been injured during fights with AL members.
8. The appellant himself has not come to the adverse attention of the authorities. The charges against his father and uncle dated to 2018 and there was no evidence of any follow up by the authorities against these relatives in the seven years since.
9. His “sur place” activities in the UK are limited. He has not joined the BNP in the UK or made attempts to involve himself at a higher level despite his activist experience in Bangladesh. He is a “face in the crowd” with no particular profile at the small number of demonstrations he has attended. It is unlikely that these activities will have brought him to the attention of the authorities in Bangladesh.
10. The judge turned to the general risk to BNP members at [22] and found, applying the previous CPIN that even to the lower standard of proof that the appellant would be unlikely to be of ongoing interest to the Bangladeshi authorities or subject to serious harm. Although clashes sometimes involve violence, the numbers were low in relation to the numbers of individuals involved.
11. At [23] the judge considered the up to date CPIN postdating the regime change. The judge noted that the AL government has been forcibly removed, and that there is an interim government in place. The judge found that the appellant would not be at real risk of serious harm if returned to Bangladesh. At [25] the judge found that even if it were the case that the appellant were at risk from League members in his own locality, he could relocate to another area of Bangladesh to avoid risk. The judge dismissed the appeal on all grounds.
Grounds of appeal
Ground 1 – failure to consider the evidence in the round- failure to take into account material evidence
12. The judge failed to take into account material evidence that the appellant had been hospitalised in Bangladesh after being assaulted.
13. The judge erred when finding that there had been no “adverse follow up” into the appellant’s family because he failed to take into account evidence from the appellant’s uncle in the form of a letter dated 23 December 2023 that the cases were ongoing and that there continued to be police raids until October 2023.
14. The judge failed to consider the objective evidence in the round, including evidence of a serious incidents of either fatal or serious attacks on prominent BNP figures which postdated the regime change in August 2024. The judge failed to take into account the extent to which law enforcement agencies have been aligned with the AL and that these same police and law enforcement agencies continue to operate.
15. The judge failed to approach the appellant’s case in accordance with paragraph 339K of the immigration rules. The appellant had been subject to serious harm and the fact that the AL government has resigned does not constitute a good reason why this harm would not be repeated.
Ground 2 -error in approach to risk to the appellant by virtue of his “sur place” activities in the UK.
16. The judge erred by finding that the appellant had not previously come to the attention of the authorities when he had been previously attacked by AL people. His writing against the government was well documented.
17. The judge employed the incorrect approach to the Facebook posts. The judge failed to have regard to the content of the posts and who was likely to monitor those posts. The government has the capacity to check or monitor people on the internet and appellant who has an activist profile may face persecution for this reason. The judge failed to consider whether the appellant would keep or delete his Facebook account to avoid being persecuted on return to Bangladesh. He is unlikely to close his account which may enhance the risk to him.
Permission to appeal
18. Permission was granted on 25 September 2025 by Upper Tribunal Judge Bulpitt on all grounds on the basis that the judge had arguably made mistakes of fact about the absence of the appellant’s hospitalisation in Bangladesh and the follow up in relation to false charges and that these errors could be material to the assessment of risk.
Rule 24 response
19. The respondent prepared a rule 24 response opposing the appeal, the main thrust of which was that the medical evidence relied on lacked details of the appellant’s asserted injuries and was of little evidential value.
20. At the error of law hearing, I heard submissions from both parties which are recorded in the record of proceedings and to which I make reference in my discussion below. Mr Bahja also relied on his skeleton argument in which he addressed the Court of Appeal case of MU v SSHD [2025] EWCA Civ 812 which dealt with the changes that have occurred in Bangladesh since the fall of Hasina’s government. He submitted that it does not follow from the judgment that no other cases of BNP supporters will succeed following the regime change. His skeleton went somewhat further than his grounds.
21. I had before me a 382 page PDF bundle of documents.
Discussion and Analysis
22. Having carefully considered the oral submissions made to the Tribunal and the relevant parts of the Decision, I have concluded for the reasons that follow that the Decision does not contain a material error of law and shall stand.
23. The Court of Appeal has recognised that the First-tier Tribunal is a specialist fact-finding tribunal, and the Upper Tribunal is required to exercise judicial restraint in its oversight of its reasoning: In Ullah v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2024] EWCA Civ 201; [2024] 1 W.L.R. 4055 (‘Ullah’) Green LJ, with whom Lewison and Andrews LJJ agreed, stated at [26]:
“Sections 11 and 12 TCEA 2007 Act restricts the UT’s jurisdiction to errors of law. It is settled that:
(i) the FTT is a specialist fact-finding tribunal. The UT should not rush to find an error of law simply because it might have reached a different conclusion on the facts or expressed themselves differently: see AH (Sudan) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2007] UKHL 49 [2008] 1 AC 678 at paragraph [30];
(ii) where a relevant point was not expressly mentioned by the FTT, the UT should be slow to infer that it had not been taken into account: e.g. MA (Somalia) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2010] UKSC 49 at paragraph [45];
(iii) when it comes to the reasons given by the FTT, the UT should exercise judicial restraint and not assume that the FTT misdirected itself just because not every step in its reasoning was fully set out: see R (Jones) v First Tier Tribunal and Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority [2013] UKSC 19 at paragraph [25];
(iv) the issues for decision and the basis upon which the FTT reaches its decision on those issues may be set out directly or by inference: see UT (Sri Lanka) v The Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 1095 at paragraph [27];
(v) judges sitting in the FTT are to be taken to be aware of the relevant authorities and to be seeking to apply them. There is no need for them to be referred to specifically, unless it was clear from their language that they had failed to do so: see AA (Nigeria) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2020] EWCA Civ 1296 at paragraph [34];
(vi) it is of the nature of assessment that different tribunals, without illegality or irrationality, may reach different conclusions on the same case. The mere fact that one tribunal has reached what might appear to be an unusually generous view of the facts does not mean that it has made an error of law: see MM (Lebanon) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] UKSC 10 at paragraph [107].”
24. I remind myself of the limited circumstances in which an appellate Tribunal may interfere with findings of fact and credibility by the First-tier Judge, who saw and heard the Appellant give her evidence. In Volpi & Anor v Volpi [2022] EWCA Civ 464; [2022] 4 W.L.R. 48 (‘Volpi’) Lewison LJ, with whom Males and Snowden LJJ agreed, explained interference with findings of fact and credibility is appropriate only where such a finding is ‘plainly wrong’ or ‘rationally insupportable’ at [2]-[5]:
“The appeal is therefore an appeal on a pure question of fact. The approach of an appeal court to that kind of appeal is a well-trodden path. It is unnecessary to refer in detail to the many cases that have discussed it; but the following principles are well-settled:
(i) An appeal court should not interfere with the trial judge's conclusions on primary facts unless it is satisfied that he was plainly wrong.
(ii) The adverb “plainly” does not refer to the degree of confidence felt by the appeal court that it would not have reached the same conclusion as the trial judge. It does not matter, with whatever degree of certainty, that the appeal court considers that it would have reached a different conclusion. What matters is whether the decision under appeal is one that no reasonable judge could have reached.
(iii) An appeal court is bound, unless there is compelling reason to the contrary, to assume that the trial judge has taken the whole of the evidence into his consideration. The mere fact that a judge does not mention a specific piece of evidence does not mean that he overlooked it.
(iv) The validity of the findings of fact made by a trial judge is not aptly tested by considering whether the judgment presents a balanced account of the evidence. The trial judge must of course consider all the material evidence (although it need not all be discussed in his judgment). The weight which he gives to it is however pre-eminently a matter for him.
(v) An appeal court can therefore set aside a judgment on the basis that the judge failed to give the evidence a balanced consideration only if the judge's conclusion was rationally insupportable.
(vi) Reasons for judgment will always be capable of having been better expressed. An appeal court should not subject a judgment to narrow textual analysis. Nor should it be picked over or construed as though it was a piece of legislation or a contract.
Ground 1 – The judge erred by failing to consider the evidence in the round.
25. This ground is rather oddly pleaded but boils down to an assertion that the decision is flawed by reason of the judge failing to take into account material evidence.
26. The appellant’s evidence in his witness statement was that he was attacked twice in Bangladesh. In 2018 when he was canvassing for an electoral candidate, he was attacked by 30 or so AL supporters who hit him, inter alia, across his forehead and on the left side of his eye. He was hospitalised. The police took no action. The second incident took place in 2020. He was the victim of a serious attack by AL members and he was hospitalised for a longer period.
27. In support of these assertions the appellant adduced two medical documents. The first is a patient release form from Goainghat Upazila Health Complex dated 27 December 2028 which states that the appellant was suffering “physical assault”. The second is titled “discharge advice and instructions” and is from Osmani Medical College Hospital. It states that the appellant was under treatment from 19 December 2020 until 29 December 2020, lists some medication and says he was suffering from “physical assault”. The third medical document is a rule 35 report in which the doctor outlines the details of attacks and confirms that the appellant has a scar over his nasal bridge, a small scar near his right eye and a scar in his left armpit. The GP notes that the scars may be consistent with his account.
28. The judge approached the appellant’s evidence of being attacked at [20iii]. He said:
“While, in common with other members of the Party, he will no doubt have come into some conflict with members of the league, the relevant CPINS indicate that in the past this would have been a routine occurrence, and he has provided no first-hand medical evidence in respect of the extent of his claimed injuries. The brief medical report from the doctor at the detention centre is entirely based on the existence of three scars (for which there could be multiple explanations) and the appellant's own account, some five and three years after the alleged events and therefore is far from definitive. However, I note that the appellant said that he was twice hospitalised in Bangladesh for treatment of the injuries he received, but has provided no evidence of such treatment. While in protection appeals there is no strict requirement for appellants to provide corroborative evidence (ST (Corroboration- Kasolo) Ethiopia [2004] UKIAT 00119), that is unless such evidence was readily available and there was no good reason for it not to be provided, which I consider to be the case in this appeal. I accept it possible that perhaps on a couple of occasions in the four years of which he was active the appellant became involved in fights with league members in which he suffered some injury.” ( my emphasis)
29. There is clear reference to the rule 35 report which has manifestly been taken into account. It may well be that the judge is making a criticism of the lack of detail of the actual injuries sustained and precise treatment received in the hospital reports which were produced - that is, that his criticism was aimed at the vague content of the reports and their poor quality rather than overlooking them completely. This was the submission of Mr OJo who emphasised that the reports made no more than references to “physical assault”.
30. However, even were it the case that this evidence had been overlooked completely, this error is not material. This is because the judge did find on the alternative basis that the appellant had been involved in fights with AL members and suffered some injury on a couple of occasions because of the general background evidence of such conflicts being routine. In other words, the judge accepted the appellant’s evidence and the evaluated the risk to him on that basis. I do not accept Mr Bahja’s submission that because the judge overlooked the medical evidence, he failed to engage in the severity of the injuries and that this somehow led to judge to make a flawed assessment of risk. The reports were not detailed and did not outline the appellant’s injuries. Secondly, the extent to which the appellant was injured would not dictate the risk to him on return. It is not indicative of his political profile. On his own evidence, the injuries were inflicted by AL supporting non state actors and were not targeted attacks by the authorities. As the judge pointed out there were millions of BNP supporters and such clashes were commonplace.
31. At [20iv] the judge stated that there was no risk to the appellant because of the lack of “follow up” on his family. The appellant’s uncle did produce a letter dated December 2023 stating that he had been arrested and that the authorities continued to raid their homes. I am satisfied that although a judge is not required to set out all the evidence considered, the wording at [20iv] suggests that judge found there was no evidence rather than he did not accept this evidence which suggests that the judge did fail to grapple with this evidence. The difficulty for the appellant is that this evidence pre-dated the fall of Hasina. There was no evidence from the appellant’s family that the authorities had continued to be interested in the family after the regime change and the evidence in the CPIN was that the AL is no longer in government. The judge’s error in failing to take into account this evidence is therefore immaterial to the outcome of the appeal.
32. I do not accept Mr Bhaja’s submission that the judge has not considered the objective evidence of risk in the round. The judge set out Mr Bhaja’s submissions before the First-tier Tribunal at [19iii] in some detail. The judge noted his submission that the interim government had been in power for eight or nine months, with a limited mandate; it is reasonable to infer that the AL is well established in in the security forces after the many years in which they have been in power and that it will take time for the reforms to taken place. He submitted that BNP supporters would face the same problems and that clashes would still take place.
33. At [22] the judge considered the risk to the appellant based on his profile prior to the regime change against the CPIN 2020 which stated “in general low level members of opposition grounds are unlikely to be of ongoing interest to the authorities and are unlikely to be subject to treatment that is sufficiently serious by its nature or repetition to amount to persecution [2.4.7]”. The judge also noted that the CPIN stated that there is politically motivated violence between political parties but that the numbers of people affected were low in relation to the membership of such parties and such violence could not therefore be considered to amount to a real risk of persecution.
34. At [23] the judge noted that that Awami league has been forcibly removed from power . The judge in the same paragraph stated “I note the evidence provided by the appellant [123 to 146] and [445 to 446] asserting that the picture painted by the CPIN is overly optimistic and to support his account that nothing has reality changed at a local level and which I consider as follows.” From [23(i)] to [23(v)] the judge set out the material relied on by the appellant. The grounds appear to repeat the contents of the material and refer to prominent BNP members being attacked after the change in government. It is manifest from reading the decision as a whole that the judge took all of this background evidence into account alongside the appellant’s submissions when assessing risk.
35. At [24] the judge found that the evidence presented did not outweigh the evidence in the CPIN that in general BNP members were unlikely to face persecution or serious harm from the state and that violence is directed towards AL members. The judge concluded;
“While it may be the case that the political and security situation in Bangladesh may continue to suffer instability that does not mean that there is a continuing personal threat to the appellant from the League, based on incidents five or more years ago, involving members of a party that is now, itself out of power and subject to sanction by the new government”.
36. This general position has subsequently been endorsed by Lord Justice Underhill at [16] of MU. I agree with Mr Ojo that [21] to [26] of the decision chime with MU.
37. The judge did not specifically refer to 339K of the immigration rules. Similarly paragraph 339K was not referred to in the skeleton argument and there is no reference to any submissions being made in respect of paragraph 339K. In any event a judge of this specialist Tribunal can be taken to be aware of this provision and the judge was clearly evaluating the future risk to the appellant on the basis of what had happened to him in the past including the fact that he had been injured in clashes and that his family members had cases against them.
38. Ground 1 amounts to a disagreement with the decision of the judge. The judge took into account the evidence before him in the round and any failure to consider the evidence of further interest in the appellant’s family was immaterial to the outcome of the appeal. The judge’s factual findings were rationally supportable and grounded in the evidence. The judge manifestly had regard to the appellant’s submissions and the background material put forward on risk and the judge’s conclusion clearly followed from a holistic consideration of all the evidence on risk. Ground 1 is not made out.
Ground 2- Failure to assess sur place activities
39. The judge considered the evidence in respect of the appellant’s sur place activities at [21]. The grounds assert that the appellant was a “prolific writer”. The judge however found that the appellant’s “sur place” activities were limited and consisted of some Facebook posts which appeared under a different name than his own as well as attendance at two undated BNP rallies. The judge noted that the appellant had not sought membership of the BNP in the UK nor made more active attempts to involve himself at a higher level in any political activity.
40. At [21] the judge stated;
“Reliant on BA (Demonstrators in Britain - risk on return) Iran CG [2011] UKUT 36 (IAC), he appears to be simply yet another “face in the crowd” with no particular profile at apparently two demonstrations he has evidenced and there is no indication of any media interest that might draw attention to him. On his own evidence he has not previously come to the attention of the authorities in Bangladesh so therefore it seems unlikely that any monitoring by them in the UK would pick him out. I don't therefore consider that this activity changes the appellants low profile in Bangladesh”.
41. Mr Bahja tried to persuade me that the appellant in this appeal can be distinguished from MU because MU was of no interest to the authorities but this appellant had come to their attention because he had been attacked twice and because there are pending cases against family members.
42. The judge’s finding that the appellant did not come to the attention of the authorities is sustainable and rational. The appellant’s account is that he was attacked by non-state agents (not by police nor any arm of the state). He does not claim to have a case or arrest warrant against him. At [18iii] the judge noted that the appellant had spent a considerable time if Bangladesh as an active supporter, in particular in the year before he left, without other incident or adverse attention from the League or the police. The judge noted that it would be unlikely that he would have been able to leave the country on his own passport if he was of adverse interest. This finding is adequately reasoned.
43. Mr Bahja also tried to persuade me that the judge has mischaracterised the appellant as being “low level” when he was in fact an activist, indeed a prominent activist, but I am satisfied that the judge gave adequate and sustainable reasons grounded in the evidence for finding that the appellant could not be considered to have a high profile role. The judge properly assessed the risk to the appellant on the basis of his individual status as a low level activist who had no outstanding cases against him.
44. The judge in this appeal also made a finding that the appellant could safely and reasonably relocate elsewhere to avoid being harmed by local AL members.
45. I disregard the argument that the Court of Appeal in MU did not have a more recent Country Information Report Bangladesh country focus August 2025 prepared by the European Union Agency for Asylum. This postdates the appeal was not before the judge and nor for that matter the Court of Appeal in MU. This appears to be an attempt to reargue the appeal.
46. The grounds argue that the judge has erred in his approach to Facebook posts in that he failed to consider if the appellant would delete his Facebook posts prior to returning to Bangladesh in accordance with XX (PJAK, sur place activities, Facebook ) Iran (CG) [2022] UKUT 23 (IAC). It is not recorded that the appellant made these submissions at the hearing nor relied on this in his skeleton argument. In any event the judge has made sustainable findings that the Facebook posts were in a different name and would not be monitored. (Even the appellant’s ground of appeal acknowledge that the government does not have the capacity to monitor all posts). The judge made rational and sustainable findings that the appellant would not be at risk on account of his “sur place” activities even were the AL still in power with reference to the previous CPIN. The fact that there has been a regime change since that time was pertinent to the assessment of risk. The ground in respect of Facebook posts is misconceived. Hasina’s government has been ousted from power and as a matter of common sense, there would be no need for the appellant to delete posts critical to the previous regime which is no longer in power to avoid serious harm.
47. Ground 2 amounts to a disagreement with the findings of the judge and does not disclose an error of law.
48. The judge’s conclusion that the appellant is not at risk of persecution, serious harm or treatment contrary to Article 2 ECHR is manifestly sustainable.
Conclusion
49. It follows that none of the appellant’s grounds of appeal are made out and the appellant’s appeal is dismissed.

Notice of Decision
50. The decision of First-tier Tribunal dismissing the appellant’s asylum, humanitarian protections and article 3 and 8 human rights appeal dated 17 February 2025 stands.

R J Owens

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

11 February 2025