Reported Case
Asso Hama Abdullah - and - The Secretary of State for the Home Department HX/00914/2005 (4 February 2014)
Date: 04/02/2014
Upper Tribunal - Immigration and Asylum Chamber
The appellant appeals with permission against the determination of Immigration Judge Pugh (as she then was) promulgated as long ago as 4 August 2008 dismissing his appeal against the respondent’s decision made on 20 December 2004 to refuse him asylum and to refuse him leave to enter the United Kingdom.
The appellant is a citizen of Iraq, and of Kurdish ethnicity.
His account of what happened to him in Iraq has been accepted by the respondent. In May 1996, he joined the Workers Communist Party of Iraq (“WCPI”), and became an active member. This brought him into conflict with the PUK who in August 1996 detained, interrogated and tortured him. He was released only when the KDP overran the place where he was being held. The WCPI were not favourable to the KDP and so he fled first to Sulemaniyeh, then to Arbil then under KDP control. While there, on 15 September 1997, a play highly critical of both the PUK and the KDP which he had written and directed, was produced. This led to his arrest and detention by the KDP security forces. He was released, having promised not to involve himself in such activities again, but was on 6 November 1998 arrested with others who were rehearsing a play. His father obtained his release on “life bail”, and he was told that he would be killed if he engaged in such activities again.