FAA v The Secretary of State for the Home Department

Facts

The appellant, FAA, is an Afghan national of Tajik ethnicity from Panjshir Province, born in 2000, who is the subject of an anonymity direction. He made a protection claim on 28 November 2022, which the Secretary of State refused on 16 October 2024, and he lodged a notice of appeal on 1 November 2024. His account was that his late father had been a coach driver for the Minister of Interior Affairs; that he had joined the Green Government Trend Party (Rawand-e-Sabz) as a teenager, initially as a courier; that through a longstanding family connection he became personal assistant to the former Vice President Amrullah Saleh in 2019; and that after the Taliban takeover in August 2021 he undertook voluntary logistical work for the National Resistance Front, supplying food, clothing and ammunition to fighters, before fleeing around October/November 2021 and reaching the United Kingdom from France on 22 November 2022. He said a paternal uncle had told him the Taliban continued to search for him and his brothers, raiding family homes in Panjshir and Kabul, confiscating property and circulating his photograph, most recently in July 2025. The Secretary of State accepted his identity, nationality and ethnicity but rejected the claimed roles. Neither the appellant nor his representative attended the hearing.