AS v The Secretary of State for the Home Department

Facts

The appellant, AS, is an Iranian national of Kurdish ethnicity who arrived in the United Kingdom in November 2023 and applied for leave to remain on 30 November 2023. The claim was for protection. The appellant said he feared persecution on return to Iran for three reasons: he had attended a protest in Iran, where his sister and brother were detained and where he believed he had been identified by CCTV; he supported the KDPI; and since arriving in the UK he had posted political material on Facebook and attended four demonstrations. The Secretary of State for the Home Department refused the claim by a decision dated 03 January 2025. The Secretary of State accepted his nationality and ethnicity, and that there was a Convention reason (race and political opinion). However, the Secretary of State did not accept his account of events in Iran or that he genuinely held a political opinion that he had expressed in the UK. The decision letter conceded that, because he feared the state, there would be no sufficiency of protection or internal relocation option if his account were accepted. At the hearing the Presenting Officer further conceded that, if the account were accepted, there would be a risk of persecution on return. The appellant appealed to the First-tier Tribunal on protection and human rights grounds. The appeal was heard as a hybrid hearing at Columbus House on 03 September 2026, and the appellant gave evidence through a Kurdish Sorani interpreter.