Refugees Fleeing Religious Persecution Treated
Unfairly
Human Rights First survey finds inappropriate quizzing of religious refugees
NEW YORK – Nov. 26 – Human Rights First released the
results of a survey of asylum seekers and their attorneys showing
that those who flee from religious persecution regularly face inappropriate
“questioning” or “quizzing” about their religions
from asylum adjudicators in the U.S. and elsewhere. These practices
unfairly target victims of religious persecution who are not highly
educated or who have lived in repressive countries where religious
education is simply not available. The survey also revealed that adjudicators
sometimes base their decisions on their own personal knowledge and
on mistaken understandings of the refugee’s religion.
For example, the survey includes the following reports:
A Tibetan Buddhist’s claim for asylum was challenged because
he could not identify “the three main books” –
a concept that was relevant to Buddhism as practiced in India but
not to Tibetan Buddhism.
An asylum seeker from Russia who had converted to Evangelical Christianity
was accused by an immigration judge of not knowing the tenets of
his religion because he did not know the name, used in the English
language, of “The Lord’s Prayer.” After the asylum
seeker explained that he had always known the prayer as “Our
Father,” the judge reportedly began screaming and jumped out
of his chair in reaction to the asylum seeker’s “lack
of knowledge” of the tenets of his religion.
Asylum was initially denied to a Jewish asylum seeker from the
former Soviet Union because he could not describe certain motions
that were described in the adjudicator’s own copy of a U.S.
publication on Judaism. The man’s ability to observe Jewish
rituals had been minimal because of the historical repression of
his religion and the fear he had lived in.
“The use of ‘checklists’ or ‘quizzes’
is disturbing and inappropriate,” said Eleanor Acer, Director
of the Asylum Program at Human Rights First.
“These practices add insult to injury. This is particularly
troubling in the U.S., a country founded and built by religious
refugees.”
Also troubling were cases in which adjudicators accused asylum
seekers of religious insincerity. For instance, in one case, a Somali
asylum seeker who was Muslim was found to not be credible in part
because, when he fled his home which was under attack, he could
not stop to bury his murdered family members without risking his
own life. In another case, an asylum seeker was told that he was
not a “good Christian” because he was not willing to
die for his beliefs.
Survey findings revealed the following inappropriate practices
among U.S. immigration adjudicators:
- Quizzing and looking for the “correct”
answer.
- Requests for demonstrations of faith (reciting
prayer or performing practices or movements).
- Application of the adjudicator’s own
(often inaccurate) knowledge of religion;
- Failure to take into account effects of
repression of religion;
- Lack of consideration of inability to practice
faith freely if returned;
- Accusing asylum seekers of not living up
to tenets of their faith;
Human Rights First urges the United States, the
UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and other states to issue
guidelines to help ensure that religion-based asylum claims are assessed
in an appropriate manner. At a minimum, the guidelines must address
the following:
(1) legal standards,
(2) the manner of questioning,
(3) the need for additional training and resources on religions
and religious issues, and
(4) religious, cultural and gender sensitivity.
Finally, the use of “checklists” and quizzing must
be abandoned. More appropriate approaches, based on narrative questioning,
should be developed.
The survey was prepared by Human Rights First in order to provide
input to the Roundtable on Religion Persecution Claims, an expert
roundtable co-sponsored by the United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees and Church Word Service, in Baltimore, Maryland in
late October 2002.
To access the report online, go to: http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/refugees/religion_surv_1102.pdf
To request hard copies of the report, please call 212 845-5259.
|
