Tribunal decisions

The decision

Upper Tribunal
(Immigration and Asylum Chamber) Appeal Number: UI-2025-004015
First-tier Tribunal Number: PA/55863/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued
On 10 February 2026

Before

DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE WOODCRAFT

Between

HR
(Anonymity order made)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:

For the Appellant: Mr A Kaihiva, Counsel
For the Respondent: Ms E Blackburn, Home Office Presenting Officer

DECISION AND REASONS

Heard by CVP at Field House on 20 January 2026
The Appellant
1. The appellant is a citizen of Iran born on 25 December 1985. He appeals against a decision of the First-tier Tribunal dated 9 July 2025 which dismissed his appeal against a decision of the respondent dated 21 February 2024. That decision had refused the appellant’s application for international protection made on 21 October 2022. The appellant’s wife and the couple's three-year old daughter are dependent on the appellant’s claim. The appellant arrived in the United Kingdom in or about October 2022.
Order Regarding Anonymity.
2. Pursuant to rule 14 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008, the appellant (and/or any member of his family, expert, witness or other person the Tribunal considers should not be identified) is granted anonymity, and is to be referred to in these proceedings by the initials HR. 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.
The Appellant’s Case
3. The appellant claimed international protection on three grounds. The first was that since arriving in the United Kingdom he had converted to Christianity and would seek to practise his religion upon return. This would bring him to the adverse attention of the authorities who it was agreed would not tolerate such a conversion, if genuine. The second ground is that the appellant fears that he might become a victim of an honour killing because he married his wife against the wishes of his and her parents. The third ground is that the appellant has engaged in sur place activities since arriving in the United Kingdom in particular he has posted on his Facebook account about his religious views and these too would bring him to the adverse attention of the authorities.
The Decision at First Instance
4. The judge set out in some detail the correspondence put forward on the appellant’s behalf attesting to the genuineness of the conversion of the appellant from Islam to Christianity. The judge found that the credibility of these documents was undermined by the failure of the writers (referred to as Dorodian witnesses) to attend the hearing of the appellant’s appeal. Their evidence could thus not be tested. At [41] of the determination the judge set out why it would have been important to question these witnesses stating:
“Common themes which remain unclear: had any of these letter writers attended to speak to their support of the appellant, I would have wanted to know how much they actually knew of the appellant’s back story. In particular, whether they appreciated that prior to coming to the UK, the appellant had no prior interest in Christianity. The secondary issue would have been whether they knew anything about the claimed problems that he had had in Iran, and that the Greek authorities had decided not to grant him status on the back of those claims. In light of that knowledge, I would have asked them in clarification questions, if necessary, whether anything that they had put in the letters might be affected by knowing this new information if they previously did not know about it. There is one other matter which may well have had a bearing on the case, and that is that the appellant’s brother-in-law also came to the UK having problems because he was a Christian convert. I would have wanted to know if he had discussed this with them or not…. There are more omissions from these documents than there are answers in my assessment. Those matters which may have gone to support a claim of the appellant being a genuine convert, are undermined by material errors and omissions.”
5. The judge found that the appellant had not shown to the lower standard that he was a genuine Christian convert. As a result, the appellant could reasonably be expected to remove his Facebook account prior to return. The judge found that the appellant had not been posting in his own name because the name he used was a much-shortened version of his full name. The appellant’s fear of an honour killing was said to be due to the objections of his family and his wife’s family to the couple’s marriage. The judge did not accept that the families would have the means or ability to locate the appellant in the event of his return to Iran and dismissed this ground of claim stating at [54]:
[The appellant] has failed to show how or why the family would be interested in him, how or why they would track him and why he would be unable to relocate somewhere within Iran, if necessary, where he could blend into the local community with his wife and child, and lead a normal life.”
The judge dismissed the appeal.
The Onward Appeal
6. The appellant appealed against this decision, but permission was refused by the First-tier in a lengthy decision. The appellant renewed his appeal to the Upper Tribunal in what was also a lengthy document, and which put forward eight grounds:
Ground 1 The judge dismissed the affidavit from “F” (who also did not attend the hearing) as “self-serving. The ground stated: “The expectation of a “chain of custody” letter to UK representatives, further exemplified an overly rigid, formalistic approach [on the judge’s part] to provenance.” That the affidavit and the appellant’s statement were in similar terms indicated consistency which supported credibility. In counsel’s skeleton, prepared for the hearing before me, counsel added: The Judge substituted personal unfamiliarity ("not something I have ever heard of") for objective evidence on registry tracing, failing the duty to give reasons (MK (Pakistan) [2013] UKUT 00641 (IAC)).
Ground 2 argued that the judge had set an unreasonable expectation on the Appellant to produce live witnesses and then used their absence to justify assigning ’’limited if any weight” to their written accounts. This unfairly discounted the evidential value of written submissions without proper consideration of their merits. The rejection of the church letters (because of the non-attendance of the makers of the letters) “[treated] non-attendance as determinative rather than assessing the contents of the letters and the probative value they could bear”. Weight had been wrongly conflated with admissibility. This was judicial conjecture creating hypothetical deficiencies.
Ground 3 argued that the Judge attributed substantial weight to the perceived lack of evidence regarding the Appellant’s completion of the Alpha course (a Christian evangelism programme) and his progression towards baptism. The Judge had found the assertion that the Appellant ’’completed the Alpha course” in York to be a ’’material misrepresentation,” letters from York did not corroborate this detail. In the skeleton argument counsel wrote: “The Judge deemed Ms Hwang's reference to Alpha course completion a "material misrepresentation" due to silence in York letters [FtT para’s 28,32], inferring falsehood from absence (logical fallacy). This ignored possible corroboration.”
Ground 4 concerned the Appellant’s claim of risk from honour-based violence. The mere omission of a portion of the appellant’s surname did not automatically render the appellant’s social media profile unidentifiable, particularly to close family members who would be intimately familiar with the Appellant's first name, his physical appearance and potentially the specific content of his posts. The Judge’s treatment of the Appellant’s Facebook activity and the associated risks misapplied country guidance. Even low-level political activity or online criticism of the Iranian regime could place a Kurdish returnee at real risk. The Judge’s focus on the Appellant’s subjective intent in writing his posts rather than the objective perception of the authorities to them was a material misdirection.
Ground 5. The judge correctly identified the standard of proof for the Appellant as the lower standard (defined as "a reasonable degree of likelihood" or "a real risk"). However, in practice, the Judge appeared to have applied a higher, more demanding standard. The Judge’s demand for evidence and the dismissal of written evidence due to the absence of corroboration by live testimony suggested a practical application of a higher standard.
Ground 6. The judge misapplied XX (PJAK - sur place activities - Facebook) 2022 Iran CG UKUT 23 (IAC). The case does not stipulate that sur place activity in bad faith ceases to be "protected speech". The question was whether the activity itself would put the individual at risk, and whether it represented a genuine expression of belief that should not be suppressed. The Judge's emphasis on the opportunistic motivation rather than the objective risk posed by the activity, or the right to express a belief, constituted a legal error. Counsel’s skeleton added: “The Judge held posts "not protected speech" as non-genuine … conflating motivation with objective risk under XX (PJAK).”
Ground 7. The Judge concluded that it was ’’reasonable to expect the appellant to take steps to diminish or mitigate any potential danger” by removing content and deleting his Facebook account. This contradicted the established principle that a person with a genuine belief should not be expected to suppress or conceal that belief to avoid persecution. The skeleton noted: “Expecting deletion to mitigate risk [FtT par 50] contradicts XX (PJAK) ("hair-trigger" surveillance; deletion may be too late).
Ground 8 The Judge approached the Appellant’s case with a closed mind, adopting a predisposed stance rather than conducting a fair and individualised assessment. This was evidenced by the Judge’s remark: “In terms of my approach to these cases, having done many of them in over a decade, there is nothing novel from my usual approach...” This showed the judge did not make an open- minded evaluation of the specific facts and evidence presented in this case. The skeleton added: “The Judge's "usual approach" from "many" cases … suggests prejudgment, denying individualised assessment.
7. The application for permission to appeal came before Upper Tribunal Judge Perkins who stated that the case turned on the credibility of the appellant. The First-tier Judge, arguably, had given adequate reasons for disbelieving the Appellant. However certain aspects of the determination gave rise to concerns: Judge Perkins wrote: “One of the letters of support came from one Gyung (Helen) Hwang who is described as a director of Compassion2All, a charity supporting asylum seekers. She says of the Appellant: "[HR] began his Christian journey at the Vineyard Church in York ... where he completed the Alpha course, a foundational study for new Christians. Though he desired to be baptised there his relocation prevented this. Recognizing his understanding of Christian doctrines and his commitment to spiritual growth, I arranged for his baptism on January 29, 2024, conducted by Rev. Peter Choi at the Tabernacle Baptist Church, Newbridge."
8. Judge Perkins found it arguable that the reference to doctrinal understanding and the desire to be baptised described exactly the kind of spiritual change that the First-tier Judge found lacking. The First-tier Judge was unimpressed by this letter and at [32] referred to the "material misrepresentation" concerning the Appellant's attendance on the Alpha course. Arguably there was no misrepresentation and the judge saying the contrary may be a material error. This is clearly raised a paragraph 14 of the Grounds[ and see ground 3 above]. Judge Perkins continued:
“I am also concerned by paragraph 38 of the Decision and Reasons where, arguably, the Judge seems surprised that the Appellant is attending a Pentecostal rather than a Protestant Church. Arguably the Appellant has not claimed to have attended a Protestant Church and it is surely arguably common knowledge that Pentecostalists are Protestants.”
9. There was no Rule 24 response from the Respondent to the grant of permission to appeal.
The Hearing Before Me
10. In consequence of the grant of permission the matter came before me to determine in the first place whether there was a material error of law in the decision of the First-tier Tribunal such that it fell to be set aside. If there was then I would make directions on the rehearing of the appeal. If there was not the decision at first instance would stand.
11. At the outset of the hearing I raised with the parties whether in the light of recent events in Iran the tribunal should go ahead with hearing the present appeal. The respondent accepted that there were currently no removals to Iran but if the appellant wished to argue the change in country conditions that would be a new matter and the appellant might need to make a fresh application. For the appellant, Counsel indicated he left the matter in the hands of the Tribunal, he was ready to proceed with the appeal as it was. I agreed with the submission of the Home Office that if there was an appeal on the grounds of a change of country conditions that would be a new matter requiring a fresh application. The issue I had to decide was whether there was a material error in the First-tier Tribunal judge’s determination. In those circumstances I indicated that the matter would proceed which it did.
12. For the appellant counsel submitted that the grounds and his skeleton argument were sufficiently detailed and there was no need to repeat matters contained therein. There was a material error of law in the determination which should lead to it being set aside because grounds 1 to 8 were warranted.
13. For the respondent, it was important to note that the appellant had obtained false documents in order to travel to Europe. At [55] the judge had given the appellant the benefit of the doubt saying “taking the case at its highest” family members had managed to track the appellant down and were motivated to cause the appellant and his wife harm but nevertheless the appellant had failed to demonstrate that there was an ongoing risk to either of them.
14. In relation to ground 2, the judge dealt with the church evidence in great detail. He went through each letter from each church individually. The judge did not reverse the burden of proof.” When the judge made remarks such as he would have wanted to know certain things from the witnesses what he meant was that the witnesses’ evidence could not be tested. It was a matter for the judge to give such weight to the church documents as he saw fit. It was clear when the determination was read as a whole why the judge had taken issue with the evidence of the alpha course. There was a misrepresentation about the course because there was no certificate of completion. The appellant could not answer basic questions about religion. Ms Hwang had said the appellant had completed the course but she was not present in court to answer questions about that assertion. The other two letters made no mention of the Alpha course.
15. As to ground 3 the judge found the lack of a certificate concerning. A material misrepresentation might not be the best phrase the judge could have applied but the point was that the witness had given incorrect evidence on a key point in the case.
16. Ground 4 was a mere disagreement with the judge's finding. The question was how identifiable would the appellant be to the authorities in Iran. The answer was that the appellant was of no interest to them. As to ground 5 the judge correctly directed himself on the burden and standard of proof. To describe evidence as a fabrication was not an elevated burden or standard. Taking grounds 6 and 7 together since they addressed similar issues, the judge was entitled to say that the appellant did not have a high profile and only made his comments in his Facebook entries for the purpose of his fabricated claim. The judge found the appellant was not at risk and the appellant could delete his profile.
17. In talking about previous cases, the judge was merely pointing out that he was highly familiar with these types of cases. The allegation made in the grounds of bias was a serious accusation and the threshold the appellant had to cross to show this was high. That the judge did not find the evidence credible did not mean he was biased. Many judges would have come to the conclusion that this judge came to. This was a case where the appellant did not know the date of Christmas day and where the appellant was known to have used false evidence in the past.
18. Judge Perkins in his grant of permission drew attention to the use of the words Pentecostal and Protestant. The point the judge was making at [38] concerning the letter from Gorton evangelical church was that the appellant had attended churches of different denominations. The appellant was said to have attended a Pentecostal church.
19. In conclusion for the appellant counsel stood by the grounds of onward appeal and the contents of his skeleton argument. A holistic approach to the whole determination was required although individually the grounds stood by themselves. The determination was flawed.
Discussion and Findings
20. This is essentially a reasons-based challenge and as Judge Perkins pointed out when granting permission, the case turns on the credibility of the appellant. The appellant mainly proceeds on two of the original three bases of his claim for international protection namely his conversion to Christianity and his sur place activities in for example his Facebook account. The lengthy grounds of onward appeal have only a brief mention of the claimed risk from the appellant's family which is that the appellant could be recognised by his family from his Facebook account. However, there is little put forward in support of the claim to be at risk from the family and bearing in mind the burden of proof rests on the appellant. There is nothing to show that the judge was wrong to reject this part of the appellant's claim for international protection for the reasons he gave at [55] and [56].
21. The appellant claims to fear the Iranian authorities because he has converted to Christianity, it is the case if the conversion is genuine and the authorities find out about it that the appellant is at a very real risk of treatment contrary to article 3 or worse. The appellant had to satisfy the judge to the appropriate standard that he was a genuine convert. The judge did not accept that the appellant was genuine. The appellant did not call any live witnesses to support his claim of conversion. Instead the appellant produced a series of letters from various church bodies attesting to the genuineness of the appellant's conversion and his interest in Christianity. The judge did not accept this documentary evidence to be enough to discharge the burden upon the appellant.
22. There appeared to be no good reason why the appellant could not call live evidence for example it was not said that the witnesses were unable to be contacted. In cases going back to TK Burundi[ 2009] EWCA Civ 40 it has been held that where supporting evidence could reasonably have been obtained but has not been, the court is entitled to draw an adverse view of the credibility of the claimant. That was what the judge did here. There were many letters and the judge correctly found it was incumbent upon him to examine each and every letter in some detail. The problem for the appellant was that the letters made various assertions, such as completion of the alpha course which appeared to be wrong and therefore required testing. Such testing was obstructed by the failure of the appellant to call any of the makers of the letters.
23. Judge Perkins drew attention to one of the letters in the case which stated that Ms Hwang recognised the appellant's understanding of Christian doctrines and his commitment to spiritual growth. This was the evidence which the judge wanted to see as it indicated that the appellant was genuine in his conversion. The difficulty with this is the same as the difficulty identified by the judge with all the other letters of support namely that there was no one to question because nobody who had written the letters came forward to give oral evidence. It should have been a relatively simple matter for the appellant to called Ms Hwang who could be questioned on her letter and indeed might usefully have expanded on it but she was not called. There were questions which needed to be asked which go to the point made by Judge Perkins. Ms Hwang referred to “Recognizing his understanding of Christian doctrines and his commitment to spiritual growth,”. Judge Perkins suggested that might be the very point the judge needed to be satisfied on to accept the appellant’s claimed conversion. The problem was that in oral evidence the appellant showed he was very far from that state of knowledge and at the very least Ms Hwang needed to be asked some questions to clarify the contradiction between the appellant’s supposed understanding of Christian doctrine and what little he actually knew.
24. In the circumstances given that none of the witnesses were called the judge was entitled to regard the evidence with some scepticism. Ms Hwang’s letter appeared to suggest that the appellant was sent to a church to be baptised in which case some evidence from the receiving person would have been of assistance in confirming the appellant's knowledge of and willingness to practice his claimed religion. But that evidence was not put before the judge who could only deal with the case on what was in front of him not speculate on what other evidence might be available. The judge was thus not imposing a higher standard of proof as alleged in the grounds but was engaged in a fact-finding assessment of the evidence presented to him. He was entitled to draw the conclusions which he did.
25. The judge referred to the question of the alpha certificate. The appellant's evidence on this point including the supporting correspondence was clearly in something of a mess. It was open to the judge to draw an adverse inference from what he described as a material misrepresentation concerning the existence or otherwise of this certificate. The appellant was legally represented and his lawyers could be taken to know that the best evidence rule would mean that if a witness's evidence was to be challenged as it was in this case, that witness should be in a position to come to court to speak to their statement. That did not happen in this case. I agree with what both First-tier Tribunal judge Adio and Upper Tribunal judge Perkins said about the judge’s findings of a lack of credibility in the appellant's case. The appellant's previous abuse of false documentation was also a factor to be taken into account in a general assessment of the appellant’s credibility in a situation where he was putting forward documents that he said could be relied upon but which upon investigation contained glaring omissions.
26. The judge was evidently experienced in dealing with cases of claimed conversion. That did not mean that because he had sat on a number of such cases he had to put his experience to one side. It is correct that he was under an obligation to approach the case with an open mind and it is clear from a careful reading of the determination that he did just that. As the respondent correctly pointed out in submissions the allegation of bias is a serious one and the threshold is appropriately high. The evidence put forward by the appellant to support his claim of bias is nowhere near sufficient to justify such a finding. An adverse finding (made with cogent reasons) is far from establishing bias.
27. The appellant evidently had a poor understanding of the Christian religion. The written evidence which on one interpretation appeared to suggest the opposite very much needed to be carefully examined. The ability of the judge to do this was severely hampered by the failure of the appellant and on his advisers’ part to call live witnesses.
28. Another matter which concerned judge Perkins was the judge remarking at [38] that at some points in the evidence the appellant had referred to attending a Protestant church and at other points to be attending a Pentecostal church. The judge explained why this issue was relevant saying:
“[The appellant] indicates that this is a Pentecostal church, whereas I note that the appellant has previously been attending Protestant churches. I would have wanted to know how those two denominations are different and whether that had any material bearing on matters that the author speaks to, and whether there are material differences in core faith issues or practice.”
In other words, how much did the appellant really know or understand of the denomination he was attending. Judge Perkins states that all Pentecostals are protestant which may be correct, but the converse does not follow. The point at issue was a simple one, why did the appellant use two different names for the church he was attending, what did he think were the differences? This went to his knowledge of his claimed faith.
29. The remaining ground of appeal is that the judge wrongly dismissed the appellant's appeal made on sur place grounds. Since the judge had found the appellant's case on conversion to be fabricated for reasons which I consider are sustainable, it followed that there was no reason why the appellant could not simply delete his Facebook. As the posts therein did not result from a genuinely held belief but were as the judge found, simply there to bolster an otherwise weak claim, there was no hardship on the appellant to do this.
30. The judge based this conclusion on the existing country guidance, particularly XX (PJAK). The guidance in that case was 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. Paragraph 6 of the headnote states: “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.” Since there was no evidence of specific monitoring in this case the judge was drawn to the correct conclusion that the appellant could close his account in a timely fashion before being returned. At paragraph 9 of the headnote the Tribunal found:
“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. “
31. Thus it was legitimate for the judge to consider what the appellant could do to mitigate a risk of persecution. In this case it would be to delete a Facebook established (as the judge found) only to bolster his claim and so no hardship at all. For these reasons I do not find that the appellant can show any material error of law in the determination and I dismiss the appellant's appeal.

Notice of Decision
The decision of the First-tier Tribunal did not involve the making of an error of law and I uphold the decision to dismiss the Appellant’s appeal
Appellant’s appeal dismissed

Signed this 4th day of February 2026

……………………………………………….
Judge Woodcraft
Deputy Upper Tribunal Judge