The process of refugees seeking asylum differs from each country, region
and also the exact time in which the application is made. Within
short amount of time, new laws are created, extended, restricted etc.
that make it for both the applicant, as well as for the juridical
system more complicated and sometimes even conflicting to make a
decision, based on what is perceived as a 'well founded fear' of
persecution for the applicant. Proving that there exists such kind of
fear, is crucial.
This
becomes visual for example by viewing the interview processes and
several strategies used to ‘detect’ inconsistencies in the
applicants claim. One big problem appears to be the intransparency
for the interview taker on how the actual circumstances for the
applicant in their home country really are. Most people working in
immigration offices might know superficial facts about the
individuals country condition, yet not having been there or having
studied them and therefore not knowing many and certainly not all
details about the places, can lead to rather subjective and
incomplete assumptions. Those might lead to filling in the deficits
of the knowledge of the interviewer and, in the end will create
decisions that will gravely affect the life of the asylum seeker.
An
incident in Germany, Münster, happened in summer this year, in which
a Syrian refugees asylum status was revoked because it turned out
that the applicant could not speak any Arabic at all. This fact lead
to a hearing of an administrative court, were the applicant had to
prove that he was from Syria in order to get his status back. This
was done by asking detailed questions about his home city, the name
of the owner of the nearest supermarket and he even was told to draw
a lake into a map on its rightful place. The Bundesamt für Migration
und Flüchtlinge (BAMF) suspected the young man to originate from the
Ukraine instead. In the tribunal, the applicant had to prove that it
is possible to come from Syria, but not speak Arabic. It then
appeared that the young man is a Yazidi and lived in a small village
with a Kurdish minority in Syria. He gathered evidence for his origin
from his Yazidi culture community back home. The process was also
recorded and handed over to a language scientist to further
investigate the truthfulness of the claim.
In this case and in many others it might have been
usefull to include experts about the issued country, from the
beginning of the asylum process. This could have helped to give a
better and wider understanding of the countries conditions, which
goes beyond rather superficial notions.
References:
Suggested reading: Bohmer, Carol and
Amy Shuman. 2008 Rejecting Refugees. Political asylum in the 21
century. Chapter 2
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