Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER Case No: UI-2026-002073
First-tier Tribunal No: PA/67266/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 22 September 2026

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE O’BRIEN

Between

MAA
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT

Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr M Mohzam of Counsel, instructed by CB Solicitors
For the Respondent: Mr A McVeety, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Birmingham Civil Justice Centre on 24 June 2026

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.

DECISION AND REASONS
1. The appellant appeals against a decision of the First-tier Tribunal (FtT) dated 13 February 2026 dismissing his appeal against the respondent’s decision dated 4 October 2023 to refuse his claim for asylum made on 17 November 2021.
The Issues
2. Permission to appeal was granted by the FtT on 22 April 2026 on the single pleaded ground: that the FtT had failed to undertake a forward-looking assessment of risk, as required by HJ (Iran) [2010] UKSC 31.
3. In a response pursuant to rule 24 of the Upper Tribunal Rules of Procedure 2008, the respondent opposed the appeal. She submitted that the FtT had made a number of unchallenged findings rejecting elements of the appellant’s claim, had applied correctly HJ (Iran) and had reached permissible conclusions dismissing the appeal.
4. The representatives supplemented their respective party’s statements of case with oral submissions. Whilst I refer below only to such matters as necessary to understand my decision, I took the written and oral submissions, and the materials to which they referred, into account in their entirety.
Consideration
5. The appellant’s account in a nutshell was that he had been a member of the Transformateur Party since 2019 and of Goran ethnicity (paragraphs 5 & 6 of his witness statement). He had attended a demonstration organised by the Party in April 2021, at which he held placards and distributed leaflets against the Chadian military and the succession to the presidency of the son of the late president, whose death the authorities blamed on the ‘rebellion’ and/or the Goran ethnic group (paragraph 7). The appellant had been followed from work by intelligence officers, who were from the Zakhawa tribe, and asked if he was a family member of rebels (paragraphs 8 & 9). They did so and threatened him on 2-3 occasions (questions 89-92 of the asylum interview). Men in uniform returned to the appellant’s house on 15 November 2021, after he had arrived in the United Kingdom, asked about him, searched the house and assaulted the appellant’s father (paragraph 12); although no mention is made by the appellant of the assault on his father in his asylum interview (question 94). On 2 January 2022, the appellant’s father learned that protesters and party members had been arrested, and some executed (paragraph 13).
6. The FtT accepted at [19] that the demonstration took place and that the appellant attended. However, it made the following findings on the rest of his account of events in Chad:
‘20. I find that the appellant has embellished his claim to be of ongoing interest. I find he was no more than a “face in the crowd”. The appellant had never been of any previous interest to the authorities. He worked alongside government officials in various environmental projects in the petrochemical industry. This is a position of some seniority and government connection. I find the appellant would be highly unlikely to have achieved such levels of employment if he was seen to be a rebel or in any way anti-state. Further, I find that the appellant’s ethnicity, Goran, did not hold him back from securing this employment. The appellant stated that he would refer to himself as a nomadic Arab. However, his grandmother was of Goran ethnicity. Tribally or culturally the way this operates is that if any member of the family is Goran the entire family is viewed as such. However, the appellant’s ethnicity did not preclude him from obtaining work as described at (SB 87 question 52, SB 109 questions 8 and 9 and SB 140) he had a relatively “high up” employment position within the state.
21. Whilst I accept that the appellant attended a demonstration I find his low level political interest and involvement is set out in (SB 96 question 99). The appellant states that he lives and works in the city and despite not participating in demonstrations ‘they treat us like we were responsible.’ I find the appellant did not participate in a demonstration in the sense that he was not a leader, organiser or anything other than a simple attendee. The CPIN above notes that being a supporter of itself is not sufficient to generate a well-founded fear. He has no political profile, no past involvement with the authorities and only attended a single demonstration I do not accept the appellant has established a profile that would lead to adverse interest.
22. I do not find the appellant’s claims have the ring of truth regarding being followed and threatened repeatedly. The country evidence extracted above shows that various individuals were targeted and arrested and detained. If the authorities believed the appellant was an influential figure within the party there would be no reason or explanation as to why they would repeatedly come into contact with him and yet not do anything. There is further the period of time that the appellant was able to remain in country. He states that it was simply not possible to leave. No country information has been provided to say there was a total entry and exit ban from Chad during this period of time. Given the country information there was political instability. However, the appellant managed to secure a visa and left. This would be a further indication that he was not of interest to the authorities, military or secret police as has been alleged. He left on his own lawfully issued passport. I find that this is indicative of the lack of any interest in him.
23. For the reasons given above I find that the appellant is not of adverse interest to the authorities and his ethnicity would not bring him to the adverse interest of the authorities or lead to him suffering a well-founded fear of persecutory treatment should he be returned. Whilst the country conditions in Chad may be difficult. This is the same for any member of the population.’
7. The appellant accepts that the FtT assessed his account of events in Chad, and does not challenge any individual factual finding on those events. In particular, challenge is made to the FtT’s rejection of the appellant’s claim to have been followed and threatened.
8. Instead, it is asserted at paragraph 5 of the grounds that the approach of the FtT was ‘simply to argue the narrow point that those activities have not come to the attention of the Chadian state’. That is a plain mischaracterisation of the FtT’s approach. There is no finding that the appellant’s accepted activities have not come to the state’s attention, rather that they have not given rise to any adverse attention. That conclusion in itself is not challenged. It is in any event a conclusion undoubtedly open to the FtT.
9. It is further submitted at paragraph 6 of the grounds that the FtT’s conclusion was ‘backwards looking’, and ‘failed to address the application of the (forward looking) HJ (Iran) test.’ In HJ (Iran) v SSHD [2010] UKSC 31, the Supreme Court dealt with the case of two practising homosexual men, one from Iran and one from Cameroon, whose appeals had been dismissed by the AIT. The case turned on whether it was an answer to an asylum claim that the claimant could live discretely to avoid persecution. The Supreme Court confirmed the approach to be taken at [82]:
‘When an applicant applies for asylum on the ground of a well-founded fear of persecution because he is gay, the tribunal must first ask itself whether it satisfied on the evidence that he is gay, or that he would be treated as gay potential persecutors in his country of nationality.
If so, the tribunal must then ask itself whether it is satisfied on the available evidence that gay people who lived openly would be liable to persecution in the applicant’s country of nationality.
If so, the tribunal must go on to consider what the individual applicant would do if he were returned to that country.
If the applicant would in fact live openly and thereby be exposed to a real risk of persecution, then he has a well-founded fear of persecution - even if could avoid the risk by living “discreetly”.
If, on the other hand, the tribunal concludes that the applicant would in fact live discreetly and so avoid persecution, it must go on to ask itself why he would do so.
If the tribunal concludes that the applicant would choose to live discreetly simply because that was how he himself would wish to live, or because of social pressures, e g, not wanting to distress his parents or embarrass his friends, then his application should be rejected. Social pressures of that kind do not amount persecution and the Convention does not offer protection against them. Such person has no well-founded fear of persecution because, for reasons that have nothing to do with any fear of persecution, he himself chooses to adopt a way life which means that he is not in fact liable to be persecuted because he is gay.
If, on the other hand, the tribunal concludes that a material reason for the applicant living discreetly on his return would be a fear of the persecution which would follow if he were to live openly as a gay man, then, other things being equal, his application should be accepted. Such a person has a well-founded fear persecution. To reject his application on the ground that he could avoid the persecution by living discreetly would be to defeat the very right which the Convention exists to protect – his right to live freely and openly as a gay man without fear of persecution. By admitting him to asylum and allowing him to live freely and openly as a gay man without fear of persecution, the receiving state gives effect to that right by affording the applicant a surrogate for the protection from persecution which his country of nationality should have afforded him.’
10. It is uncontentious that the same principles apply equally to political opinion cases.
11. In the instant case, the FtT accepted that the appellant was a member of the Transformateurs Party, that he had attended one demonstration, that his political activities were ‘low level’ and that they were accurately described in the appellant’s answer to question 99 of his asylum interview: ‘We don’t participate in demonstrations…’. None of those findings are challenged. They were in any event were plainly open to the FtT.
12. Importantly, the FtT concludes, ‘I do not accept the appellant has established a profile that would lead to adverse interest.’ That is manifestly a forward-looking conclusion based on the appellant’s existing political profile.
13. Mr Mohsam appeared to accept that to be the case, and submitted in the alternative that the FtT had failed to consider whether the appellant’s limited past political activity was the result of a fear of persecution. However, the appellant does not say so in his witness statement that he would have been more active but for fear of persecution, nor is there any suggestion in the FtT’s reasons that such evidence was given at the hearing.
14. The grounds assert at paragraph 6 that the FtT failed to consider how the Chadian state might consider the combination of the appellant’s opposition to the state and his ethnicity. However, in [23], the FtT considered both the appellant’s political profile and his ethnicity. It is clear that, in doing so, the FtT had in mind the cumulative effect of the two factors and, moreover, that it did so looking forward to the risk on return.
15. In short, the FtT was entitled to take at face value the appellant’s account of his political activities, to accept that they were a fair reflection of his desired political profile, and to conclude not only that he had not come to the adverse attention of the authorities in the past but also, importantly, that his profile would not attract the authorities’ adverse attention in the future. It was also open to the FtT to find that the additional factor of the appellant’s ethnicity would not lead to a real risk of persecution.
16. In doing so, the FtT did not err in law.
Notice of Decision
1. The decision of the First-tier Tribunal did not involve the making of an error on a point of law and so stands undisturbed.

Sean O’Brien

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

21 September 2026