Christian converts seeking asylum in the UK are being dealt with unfairly, according to a new report assessing the effectiveness of religion-based asylum claims.
‘Fleeing Persecution: Asylum Claims in the UK on Religious Freedom Grounds‘ says that too often government officials ask about Bible factual ‘trivia’, rather than probing what someone really believes.
And this “lack of understanding of religion and belief”, the report argues, leads to the wrong people being rejected – meaning they could be forced out when they have genuinely been persecuted.
Mohammed, an Iranian asylum seeker whose application was rejected, told the BBC: “One question they asked me was very strange – what colour was the cover of the Bible. I knew there were different colours. The one I had was red. They asked me questions I was not able to answer – for example, what are the Ten Commandments. I could not name them all from memory.”
The report was commissioned jointly by the Asylum Advocacy Group and the All-Party Parliamentary Group on International Freedom of Religion or Belief.
