Date: 20040914
Docket: IMM-7115-03
Citation: 2004 FC 1241
Ottawa,, Ontario, September 14, 2004
Present: The Honourable Madam Justice Mactavish
BETWEEN:
BABAK BEIRAMI
Applicant
and
THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION
Respondent
REASONS FOR ORDER AND ORDER
[1] Babak Beirami is an Iranian citizen, who claims to have a well-founded fear of persecution in Iran because of his membership in the Democratic Front. The Refugee Protection Division of the Immigration and Refugee Board rejected his claim, finding that he was generally not credible. The Board also found that Mr. Beirami failed to establish his identity.
[2] Mr. Beirami seeks to have the decision set aside, submitting that many of the Board's credibility findings were patently unreasonable. Mr. Beirami further submits that the Board erred in refusing to accept a document issued by the Government of Iran as proof of his identity.
Mr. Beirami's Allegations
[3] Mr. Beirami alleges that he operated a video store in Tehran with Mohammad Abdullahzadeh. Mr. Abdullahzadeh was associated with the Iranian religious police or "Baseej". Mr. Beirami understood that Mr. Abdullahzadeh was remitting a portion of the store's revenues to a local mosque. However, Mr. Beirami subsequently discovered that the mosque was not receiving any money from Mr. Abdullahzadeh. When Mr. Beirami confronted Mr. Abdullahzadeh about this, Mr. Abdullahzadeh told him that the monies were actually being paid to the Baseej.
[4] Mr. Beirami says that after this confrontation with Mr. Abdullahzadeh, he began having difficulties with the Baseej. He was arrested and beaten, and was forced to sign over his interest in the video business to the Baseej.
[5] In July of 1999, Mr. Beirami began attending Azad University in Tehran, where he met another student by the name of Farzod Amini. Mr. Amini was involved with a political group known as the Democratic Front, and Mr. Beirami says that he also began working for that organization.
[6] Mr. Beirami spotted Mr. Abdullahzadeh on the university campus, and suspected that he was working as an undercover agent for the Baseej. After Mr. Beirami told Mr. Amini of his concerns, the Democratic Front distributed leaflets to the other university students warning that spies were present on the campus.
[7] Mr. Beirami says that he was arrested by the Baseej in July of 2000. He claims that he was imprisoned for 40 days, during which time he was questioned about the publication of the leaflets. After Mr. Beirami admitted sharing his concerns about Mr. Abdullahzadeh's presence on campus with Mr. Amini, Mr. Beirami says that he was severely beaten, suffering a broken nose in the process.
[8] Mr. Beirami alleges that he was then handcuffed and taken to the hospital for treatment. After he was treated for his injuries, Mr. Beirami says that he was able to escape from the guard, who was holding onto one end of the handcuffs. Mr. Beirami ran from the hospital, and was running down the highway when a passing motorcyclist stopped to assist him. The motorcyclist picked him up and took him to the home of one of Mr. Beirami's friends.
[9] After his escape from custody, Mr. Beirami's father made arrangements for Mr. Beirami to leave the country. He went first to Belgium, where he made an unsuccessful refugee claim. He then came to Canada on January 10, 2003 on a false passport, and claimed refugee protection shortly thereafter.
[10] Mr. Beirami was only able to produce one piece of identification for his refugee hearing - an Iranian 'Military Completion Card'. According to Mr. Beirami, his original birth certificate had either been lost, or it had been seized in Iran. He claims that he had provided a copy of his birth certificate to the authorities in Belgium, and that he had left a further copy of the certificate, along with his driver's licence, with a friend in Belgium. According to Mr. Beirami, the friend had mailed a number of documents to him in Canada. The documents were purportedly sent in three separate packages, because it was more cost-effective to send them this way. Although the documents were allegedly mailed some three months before Mr. Beirami's refugee hearing, with at least one package having been sent by registered mail, he testified that he had not received any of the documents prior to the hearing.
The Board's Decision
[11] The Board rejected Mr. Beirami's explanation for his inability to produce more than one identity card. The Board did not accept that none of the packages ostensibly containing Mr. Beirami's documents would have arrived in Canada some three months after they were allegedly sent. As a consequence, the Board found that Mr. Beirami's identity had seriously been called into question.
[12] The Board noted that the only form of identification produced by Mr. Beirami was his military completion card, and that information on this card contradicted his testimony. Mr. Beirami asserts that his problems arose while he was attending Azad University, and that he had started at the University right after completing his military service. However, the identification card that he produced indicated that Mr. Beirami had completed only two years of high school. Mr. Beirami had testified that he was in Shiraz for the latter part of his military service, and that he was not present when the card was issued. According to Mr. Beirami, an army office had put incorrect information on the card. The Board did not accept this explanation, suggesting that if the army did not know Mr. Beirami's level of education, the education section of his identification card would more likely have simply been left blank.
[13] The Board also found that Mr. Beirami's description of his escape from hospital was not plausible. In particular, the Board found it implausible that Mr. Beirami would be able to escape from a guard after sustaining a serious beating causing significant bleeding, while he was handcuffed. Equally implausible, in the Board's view, was Mr. Beirami's evidence that a passing motorcyclist would put himself at risk from the repressive Iranian regime, by picking up a complete stranger who was evidently fleeing the authorities.
[14] The Board also found that Mr. Beirami did not demonstrate the level of knowledge about the Democratic Front and its activities that one would have expected of an individual who had spent a year as an active member of the organization. According to the Board, Mr. Beirami's testimony in this regard was "confusing and sketchy".
[15] Due to the Board's serious concerns as to Mr. Beirami's credibility, as well as his inability to establish his identity on a balance of probabilities, the Board found that Mr. Beirami had not established that he was either a Convention refugee or a person in need of protection.
Issues
[16] Mr. Beirami raises two issues on this application:
1. Were the Board's credibility findings (apart from those relating to the issue of identity) patently unreasonable? and
2. Did the Board err when it determined that Mr. Beirami had not provided sufficient evidence of his identity?
I am of the view that this application can be disposed of on the basis of the first issue, and that it is therefore unnecessary to address the second.
Were the Board's credibility findings (apart from those relating to the issue of identity) patently unreasonable?
[17] The Immigration and Refugee Board has a well-established expertise in the determination of questions of fact, including the evaluation of the credibility of refugee claimants. Indeed, such determinations lie at the very heart of the Board's jurisdiction. As a trier of fact, the Board is entitled to make reasonable findings regarding the credibility of a claimant's story, based on implausibilities, common sense, and rationality. Accordingly, before a finding of fact made by the Board will be set aside by this Court, it must be demonstrated that such finding is patently unreasonable: Pushpanathan v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), [1998] 1 S.C.R. 982, at paragraph 40, and Aguebor v. Canada (Minster of Employment and Immigration) (1993), 160 N.R. 315 (F.C.A.).
[18] In this case, the Board rejected Mr. Beirami's evidence regarding his involvement in the Democratic Front, noting that his knowledge of the Front and its activities was "confusing and sketchy". Counsel for Mr. Beirami concedes that there was a great deal that Mr. Beirami did not know about the organization, but submits that given the covert nature of the group, it was not unreasonable for him not to know the number of members involved. Counsel further observes that Mr. Beirami was only involved in the group for a year.
[19] I have reviewed the transcript of Mr. Beirami's testimony on this issue. Although Mr. Beirami only claims to have been actively involved with the Democratic Front for a year, he describes himself as having been very much involved in the group's activities, attending meetings and rallies, and distributing Democratic Front literature. In these circumstances, the Board's concerns with respect to Mr. Beirami's limited familiarity with the Democratic Front was entirely reasonable.
[20] Mr. Beirami also submits that the Board's plausibility finding regarding his escape from hospital cannot withstand judicial scrutiny. Citing the decision of the Court of Appeal in Attakora v. M.E.I. (1989), 99 N.R. 168, Mr. Beirami says that the Board erred when it found that he could not have run away from the guard, given what he says were his injuries. In Mr. Beirami's submission, the Board could not make such a finding without medical evidence to support it.
[21] In Attakora, Justice Hugessen noted that one cannot simply take judicial notice of the extent to which an injury such as a fractured knee will interfere with an individual's ability to walk. As the Court noted, "everything will depend on the nature and extent of the fracture and upon the circumstances of the injured person."
[22] That is not what happened here. While the Board was obviously concerned about Mr. Beirami's story of his escape, given what he had said about the extent of his injuries, the Board was also clearly troubled by the fact that Mr. Beirami says that he was handcuffed at the time, and had a guard standing right next to him when he made his escape. In these circumstances, the Board's finding of implausibility was not patently unreasonable.
[23] Finally, Mr. Beirami submits that the Board's finding that it was implausible that a passing motorcyclist would stop and pick him up as he was fleeing the hospital was both speculative and patently unreasonable. According to Mr. Beirami, if the Board's logic is to be followed, the parable of the Good Samaritan is implausible.
[24] Without presuming to comment on the plausibility of Biblical parables, I note that in this case, Mr. Beirami was a handcuffed fugitive. Given the nature of the current regime in Iran, the Board found it implausible that a passer-by would stop and help Mr. Beirami escape, thereby putting the driver himself at risk. The Board found this all the more implausible, given that Mr. Beirami was allegedly a complete stranger to the driver, and the driver would have had no way of knowing why he was fleeing from the authorities. Even taking into account Mr. Beirami's claim that motorcyclists in Tehran frequently offered taxi services, I see no basis for interfering with the Board's conclusions in this regard.
[25] Given that the Board disbelieved Mr. Beirami's testimony regarding the central issues giving rise to his claim, it is therefore unnecessary to address to issue of identity, other than to observe that even if the Board had accepted Mr. Beirami's Military Completion Card as sufficient proof of his identity, the information on the card relating to Mr. Beirami's level of education further undermined his story.
[26] For these reasons, the application is dismissed.
Certification
[27] Neither party has suggested a question for certification, and none arises here.
ORDER
THIS COURT ORDERS that:
1. This application for judicial review is dismissed.
2. No serious question of general importance is certified.
"Anne L. Mactavish"
Judge
FEDERAL COURT
Names of Counsel and Solicitors of Record
DOCKET: IMM-7115-03
STYLE OF CAUSE: BABAK BEIRAMI
Applicant
- and -
THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND
IMMIGRATION Respondent
PLACE OF HEARING: TORONTO, ONTARIO
DATE OF HEARING: TUESDAY AUGUST 31, 2004
REASONS FOR ORDER
AND ORDER BY: Mactavish, J.
DATED: SEPTEMBER 14, 2004
APPEARANCES BY: Mr. Micheal Crane
For the Applicant
Mr. Robert Bafaro
For the Respondent
SOLICITORS OF RECORD: Mr. Micheal Crane
Barrister & Solicitor
166 Pearl Street, Suite 100
Toronto, Ontario
M5H 1L3
For the Applicant
Morris Rosenberg
Deputy Attorney General of Canada
For the Respondent
FEDERAL COURT
Date: 20040831
Docket: IMM-7115-03
BETWEEN:
BABAK BEIRAMI
Applicant
- and -
THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND
IMMIGRATION
Respondent
REASONS FOR ORDER
AND ORDER