KS v The Secretary of State for The Home Department

Facts

The appellant, KS, is a 21-year-old Turkish national of Kurdish ethnicity who arrived in the United Kingdom on 29 August 2024 and claimed asylum the same day. He asserted a well-founded fear of persecution at the hands of the Turkish authorities on account of his support for the HDP (People's Democratic Party), which he said began through his paternal uncle in June 2022 when he was 17. His account was that he was detained for two days in January 2023 while distributing leaflets, and that in February 2024 he was abducted by masked men for some three days, threatened with a firearm and pressed to become an informant, escaping on the third day and injuring his ankle. He also relied on his Kurdish ethnicity and his asserted inclusion on the GBT database. At the screening interview he had put his fear on the basis of his Kurdish ethnicity and Alevi faith, without mentioning the HDP; the political basis emerged at the substantive interview on 24 April 2025. The Secretary of State refused the claim by letter of 2 May 2025, contending that his accounts were inconsistent and that any HDP activity was too low-level to create a risk profile. He also complained that the respondent had recorded his year of birth as 2006 rather than 2005. He appealed to the First-tier Tribunal, appearing in person.