6 days ago
Migrants who lie about dissidence can delete social media to return home
Asylum seekers who use social media accounts to falsely demonstrate their opposition to their country's regime can have them deleted to enable them to return home, a tribunal has ruled.
Claimants from countries such as Iran and Iraq have been known to start attending demonstrations opposed to their home regimes and posting political statements on Facebook after they arrive in the UK.
They then argue that these posts will put them at risk if they are returned to their home countries, which have a history of tracking protesters via their online activities.
Now an immigration tribunal has said an asylum seeker can be asked to delete their account in order to return home if it is found the beliefs expressed are not 'genuinely held'.
The explanation came in the case of an Iraqi asylum seeker whose application was refused by the Home Office in 2022 on the grounds his credibility was 'adversely affected' by inconsistencies in his account.
He appealed to a lower-tier tribunal but his case was dismissed and he was told he could delete his Facebook account, which showed him at various anti-regime protests.
The tribunal concluded that the Iraqi had 'no political profile' and his social media had not been monitored by the state so he could delete his account and safely return to Iraq.
He appealed and claimed he had shown opposition and criticism of his country's government on a Facebook account he opened once he was in the UK. This included videos of him at demonstrations outside the Iraqi embassy, advertising protests linked to a Kurdish support group, and posting about corruption.
He argued that these would put him at risk if he returned to the country, where people have previously been targeted for their social media activism. He claimed the lower-tier judge had made a legal error by not considering whether his political opinion was genuine.
However, the hearing was also told that he had said in an asylum interview that he was 'not a political man'.
The Home Office also argued that there was no evidence the posts had been seen in Iraq, so he was free to delete his account and return.
Lucy Murray, an upper-tier tribunal judge, concluded that the lower chamber should have made a ruling on whether the asylum seeker's beliefs were not genuinely held before requiring him to delete his social media account. Because it had not determined this fact, the case needed to be reheard by the first-tier tribunal.
Judge Murray said: 'An [asylum seeker] can only be expected to delete their account if it does not reflect a genuine political belief... [His] Facebook posts showed his attendance at a number of demonstrations and posting about corruption in Iraq. That was evidence of political activity.
'It was of course open to the first-tier tribunal to find that these activities were not the expression of a genuine political belief that he would be obliged to conceal to avoid persecution but such a finding was a prerequisite to the conclusion that he could delete his Facebook account.'
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