Date: 19990316
Docket: IMM-841-98
BETWEEN:
MOHSEN ADELI
LADAN RABBANIAN
Applicants
- and -
MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION
Respondent.
REASONS FOR ORDER
SHARLOW J.:
1 The applicants seek judicial review of a decision of a panel of the Convention Refugee Determination Division dated January 30, 1998.
2 The applicants are citizens of Iran. Mr. Adeli claims to be a Convention refugee. He bases his claim on a well founded fear of persecution in Iran by reason of political opinion. Ms. Rabbanian is his wife and bases her claim on membership in a particular social group, that of family.
3 The CRDD panel did not believe Mr. Adeli's story and rejected his claim. They found in the alternative that the Applicants had a reasonable flight alternative within Iran, namely a small northern village where the applicants lived safely for a year before leaving Iran.
4 Both applicants attended the hearing before the CRDD panel and were represented by counsel. The substantive oral evidence was given by Mr. Adeli through an interpreter. The CRDD also referred to the personal information forms of the claimants containing substantially the same narrative, a CRDD information package with regard to Iran, and a package of documents relating to the events of April 1995 and its aftermath.
5 The evidence of Mr. Adeli before the CRDD was that he was one of a group of five individuals led by a person named Dr. Kofi who regularly met in the basement of the building in which Mr. Adeli lived. They printed anti-government pamphlets using copying equipment owned by Mr. Adeli which he kept in the basement.
6 Mr. Adeli claimed that he and the others in his group would distribute these pamphlets in different neighbourhoods. He claimed that this activity was dangerous and was carried out in clandestine fashion. It did not bring him to the attention of the authorities even though it went on for ten years, from 1985 to 1995.
7 The building in which the pamphlets were printed contained living accommodations for four families, and the basement contained the shop where Mr. Adeli carried on an electrical business, which was also the place where the copying machine was kept. The four families were related to Mr. Adeli, but their living accommodations were separate, each with its own entrance. The basement also had its own entrance to which only he had access. Mr. Adeli testified that no members of his family were aware of his activities with the group led by Dr. Kofi.
8 A critical event with respect to Mr. Adeli's claim is his alleged participation in an anti-government demonstration on April 4, 1995 in Akerabad. I take it as undisputed that this demonstration occurred, that it became violent, and that the Iranian authorities killed a number of demonstrators (how many is apparently not known). The authorities sought to make arrests after the demonstration, in the course of which they detained some members of the families of individuals thought to be responsible for the demonstration.
9 Mr. Adeli's evidence is that he and the others in his group, at the suggestion of Dr. Kofi, participated in the demonstration. Mr. Adeli believed that he was identified by government officials in the crowd, or by helicopters brought in during the demonstration, and that as a result he was being sought by the police. He testified that one member of his group was killed in the demonstration. He also believed that Dr. Kofi had been arrested and may have been executed.
10 Mr. Adeli and his wife fled to a village in the north of Iran where they stayed for about a year. Once they had enough money to leave Iran, they were smuggled out to Turkey and then to Canada. Mr. Adeli said that the money was raised by his wife's family, his own property having been confiscated by the Iranian government.
11 Mr. Adeli said that about a month after he left, his mother and brother were arrested, which he attributed to the fact that he was being sought by the police because of his participation in the demonstration. His mother was soon released but his brother was not. He believes his brother remained in custody, at least as of three months prior to the hearing. He suggested that his brother's continued detention might have had something to do with his father's Tudeh sympathies prior to the 1979 revolution. Mr. Adeli says that his mother went to the Evin prison and there was allowed to speak to his brother by telephone, but she was not allowed to know where he was being kept. This information about his mother and brother has apparently been conveyed to Mr. Adeli through a friend in Iran. Mr. Adeli says that he has not tried to contact his mother directly because he is afraid that the telephones are monitored.
12 The CRDD panel found Mr. Adeli's story to be implausible. Counsel for Mr. Adeli argued forcefully that the finding of implausibility was unreasonable and could not be supported on the evidence.
13 The panel identified several aspects of Mr. Adeli's evidence that they found implausible. It seems to me that the most important were these:
1. that a person could be a member of a small but active political group for over ten years and still be unable to articulate its political goals and objectives, beyond simply identifying them with general humanitarian and Islamic principles;
2. that the group was unknown to the members of Mr. Adeli's family, given the proximity of their homes; and
3. that Mr. Adeli could have been identified by the Iranian authorities in the course of the April 1995 demonstration in the manner he suggested.
14 Counsel for the Applicants focussed in considerable detail on the evidence relating to each of these points, as well as other statements made by the panel regarding plausibility.
15 There is merit in his criticisms of some aspects of the panel's decision. For example, the panel considered it implausible that Mr. Adeli's brother, who apparently was in a business similar to that of Mr. Adeli, would not operate out of the same basement shop as Mr. Adeli, but the panel suggests no particular reason why this is implausible.
16 In certain respects the panel did not distinguish between the factual evidence of Mr. Adeli and some assumptions he made. For example, the record indicates that Mr. Adeli does not know for a fact why his brother was detained, but presumed that it might have related to his participation in the demonstration or possibly to past activities of his father. The record also indicates that Mr. Adeli assumed, but did not know, that the Iranian authorities identified him through his participation in the April 1995 demonstration. I agree with counsel for the applicants that his lack of actual knowledge on these points does not necessarily mean that Mr. Adeli is not credible. However, it does underline the absence of any evidence on those points.
17 Finally, I note one blatant factual error in the reasons for decision, where the panel refers to Mr. Adeli as an "alleged leader" of his group. His evidence was that Dr. Kofi was the leader. However, that error cannot logically have affected the outcome.
18 Counsel for the Applicants argued that if I find any of the panel's conclusions on implausibility to be unreasonable, I should set aside the panel's decision. I do not agree. It seems to me that I must consider the decision as a whole against all of the evidence that was before the panel. This approach is consistent with the burden the Applicants must meet. As Décary J.A. said in Aguebor v. Canada (Minister of Employment and Immigration) (1993), 160 N.R. 315 (F.C.A.):
There is no longer any doubt that the Refugee Division, which is a specialized tribunal, has complete jurisdiction to determine the plausibility of testimony: who is in a better position than the Refugee Division to gauge the credibility of an account and to draw the necessary inferences? As long as the inferences drawn by the tribunal are not so unreasonable as to warrant our intervention, its findings are not open to judicial review. In Giron [(1992), 143 N.R. 238 (F.C.A.)], the Court merely observed that in the area of plausibility, the unreasonableness of a decision may be more palpable, and so more easily identifiable, since the account appears on the face of the record. In our opinion, Giron in no way reduces the burden that rests on the appellant, of showing that the inferences drawn by the Refugee Division could not reasonably have been drawn.
19 I have concluded that it was not unreasonable for the panel to conclude, based on the evidence, that most of Mr. Adeli's evidence was implausible. It follows that the applications of Mr. Adeli and Ms. Rabbanian must be dismissed.
20 This conclusion makes it unnecessary for me to comment on the question of internal flight alternative.
Karen R. Sharlow
Judge
Ottawa, Ontario
March 16, 1999
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