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2019 RLLR 172

Citation: 2019 RLLR 172
Tribunal: Refugee Protection Division
Date of Decision: March 12, 2019
Panel: M. Vega
Counsel for the Claimant(s): Hart A. Kaminker
Country: Egypt
RPD Number: TB7-16955
Associated RPD Number(s): TB7-16967, TB7-16968, TB7-16969
ATIP Number: A-2020-00518
ATIP Pages: 000519-000524

DECISION

[1]     MEMBER: This is the decision in the claims with respect to, XXXX XXXX XXXX, who is the principal claimant and her three children, XXXX XXXX XXXX and XXXX XXXX and XXXX XXXX XXXX and the principal file number is TB7-16955.

[2]     Okay. This decision is being rendered today orally and a written form of these reasons may be edited for spelling, syntax, grammar, references to applicable case law and legislation and exhibits may also be included.

[3]     I find that all the claimants are nationals of Egypt as there are certified true copies of their passports found in Exhibit 1, as well as, later in the temporary resident visa file, Exhibit 7 and this, as well as, there are other personal documents, copies which are on file and all these indicate to me, on a balance of probabilities, that I can conclude that the claimants are all citizens of Egypt.

[4]     I find also that the claimants are all Convention refugees and my reasons are as follows:

[5]     First of all, I would like to say that the designated representative in this case, for the minor child, XXXX, is the principal claimant, his mother and she has understood what her responsibilities were as his designated representative.

[6]     In deciding this claim, I have also taken into consideration and also in the hearing of this claim, Guideline 4 which is the Chairperson’s Guidelines on Women Refugee Claimants Fearing Gender-related Persecution. That’s the name of the guideline.

[7]     Now, having said that, the nexus in this case is membership in a particular social group as gender for you, Miss XXXX and also under the ground of religion for being imputed to be an apostate or an infidel or in other words, to be considered un-Islamic or non-conforming to the religion and as for the children, that would be as family, also membership in a particular social group as family of an apostate or mortad(ph) mother as some may say it.

[8]     Now, also with respect to the allegations, these I will summarize very quickly. They are found in the Basis of Claim Form and I won’t go through all of them, just to say that, you were all living in Egypt until you came to Canada on the XXXX XXXX XXXX of 2017, at which time you made a claim for refugee protection at an in-land office.

[9]     The troubles for you started around 2015 when at a social function, the principal claimant met extremists from the Muslim Brotherhood Party. These were women who would upon socially meeting other women, if they found that they were not Islamic enough or were not wearing the hijab, they would then start to see them socially and then commence with indoctrinating them or pushing them become more Islamic.

[10]   If they did not become more Islamic and conform to the Sharia law as these women, these two women, XXXX(sp) and XXXX(sp), were having the principal claimant do, then they would proceed to make threats and this is what happened in this case.

[11]   So, it started with criticizing your laughing, your way of talking and the clothes you wore or the lack of wearing the hijab and then later, it became that you should be wearing not just the hijab but the niqab and then there were attacks on your eldest son – sorry – first on your second son, then on the eldest son. Those attacks came later but all of these attacks resulted in serious physical injuries, as well as, the psychological injuries that accompanied those attacks.

[12]   There were also attacks to your car whereby you were purposefully hit by another car. Your car was hit by another car and that became a hit and run and then these threats continued.

[13]   There were a number of paper threats, letters, notes that were left for you, including, on one occasion, bleach was left with the threat of what that meant and how that would be used to disfigure you.

[14]   There were very insulting threats and also these were said to your sons, as well as, phone threats and these phone threats have continued too in Egypt and your husband has tried to stop them by saying that he is separated from you and is not in contact with the family, doesn’t know where they are. Okay?

[15]   So, with respect to your credibility, I have found that you have testified in a very credible manner and you’ve provided your testimony in a spontaneous way without any embellishments or contradictions and there were no discrepancies between your evidence and the documents and that also goes for the, any testimony given by your sons when I’ve asked them questions.

[16]   There’s also much of what you said is consistent with some of the documentary material with respect to how these extremists try to indoctrinate or make people be more Islamic and in Counsel’s package of Exhibit 10, there is much information from the Guardian which is considered, in my opinion, to be a reliable publication and it speaks there about how the current government of El-sisi is having to deal with these extremists and how he’s walking a tightrope because he was not the party that represented the, that was Dr. Morsi. He was not of the one that represented the Islamic side or the Muslim Brotherhood. But I’ll get to that shortly. 

[17]   So, with respect to your credibility, I have concluded that you are credible witnesses and, therefore, I accept what you’ve alleged in your Basis of Claim Form as credible and I just wanted to speak about, with respect to what is considered under the ground of religion that I think you fall into in that you have a non-conforming religious, non-conforming to the religion view of or way of life. You do not – when you were in Egypt, would not wear the hijab, let alone the niqab.

[18]   You also said that you were brought up in a quite a liberal Islamic fashion. Both your parents were educated. Your mother, I believe, taught English literature. You went to a Catholic school where a lot of Christians were in your school. A lot of them were Muslims too because you said you were upper class and you had, that was considered to be a good education to go to these Christians schools. So, you went there.

[19]   You also would go by a Christian church as your mother did and light a candle and you do that here in Canada. But you have views of having Christian friends and celebrating Christmas and things that are not considered to be Islamic.

[20]   Whether they knew that or these women became aware of that is not clear but that doesn’t negate the fact that these women did not find you Islamic enough with what they did know and from, because of that, they decided they were going to make you more and when that wasn’t working, they were then using threats and following you and had you transferred to another job and then had somebody there follow you and push you down the stairs. So, you yourself, also encountered physical threats.

[21]   According to the documentary material, the documentary material speaks about how, just how religious a country Egypt is and how an expression of not following what some would perceive to be very religious, is an expression of one’s religion or non-belief also.

[22]   It also indicates that in Egypt, it is often the case where, if women aren’t wearing the hijab they are, there’s a lot of sexual harassment that goes on. Where a report, I think it was Amnesty International – no – there’s a report done whereby 99% of the women, at least 99% had stated they had been sexually harassed.

[23]   So, somebody’s always saying something, it would appear but also going further, if one is perceived to not be Islamic enough, to be possibly atheist if a person is not Islamic enough, then because there are expectations of people going to prayer and non-believers are not treated very well in Egypt.

[24]   If they are regarded as apostates, given that apostacy is considered a crime in Egypt, then a person that doesn’t follow the social or religious morays could be considered to be doing something very wrong, a crime, it could be.

[25]   But you’re not at that point where you’re being accused of being an atheist. You’re not there. But what is serious, in my opinion, is that you are not considered to be Islamic enough and even though the Muslim Brotherhood members have been sought after by the current government and this current government has been trying to find supporters or sympathizers of the Muslim Brotherhood and rule, like, deal with them, nevertheless, this did continue to occur to you while El-sisi was in power, before you left the country and this has continued, these same people because they have managed, these women, to continue to try to do what they were doing to you.

[26]   Therefore, I think that you did go to the police and try to get them to write a report and they did not want to write one because it was the Islamic Brotherhood and that was at the time when it was no longer Morsi in power. It was El-sisi and the documentary material in the NDP package, which is Exhibit 6, it spoke there in Sections 1, 2 and 12, about the serious possibility of violence, harassment and persecution at the hands of the Muslim community, of the State and of also, extremist groups to persons who are perceived as non-Islamic or apostate and also anyone who they believe has insulted the religion.

[27]   I do not believe, under the current regime, that you would find help or assistance by the State to get protected because of your own experience but also because of what the documentary material speaks about, the human rights situation in Egypt, how it’s continuing to deteriorate and how the authorities have arbitrarily restricted the rights to freedom of expression, association, peaceful assembly and many other rights and also, I’m aware that the current government is in a way, he’s facing a – the government’s facing a difficult situation between, there was a very large group that supported the more Islamic view and according to the documentary material, he is walking that tightrope between the more theological side.

[28]   The documentary material also speaks about, in cases with respect to women where it had to do with sexual assault in Egypt, was underreported and they tried to bring in a law to make it a crime. However, not sexual assault but they’ve made sexual harassment a crime as that occurs so much. But they made the law so restrictive, whereby a woman had to provide two witnesses and they had to get them to the police, get the perpetrator to the police and it became to onerous, according to Human Rights Watch at Item 10.1 of the documentary material.

[29]   Therefore, given all of this, that you could be imputed as being a religious non-conformist or an apostate and given that I believe your sons have experienced what would amount to persecution, in my view, because you are their mother and that you yourself have experienced that through the threats, the harassment, assault on you and the psychological turmoil that this has caused you, seeing how your sons are being attacked because of this situation with you, I do not believe that you would get help, that there is adequate state protection for you or any of you in Egypt and I also don’t believe you could go live anywhere else in the country to be safe because it is the same laws and the same, this network of these extremists is very large and you did try to move elsewhere and they found out about it.

[30]   Therefore, for all these reasons, I find that the four of you are Convention refugees and I, therefore, accept your claims.

[31]   Do you understand?

[32]   Thank you and thanks, Mr. Interpreter, for all your help today.

[33]   INTERPRETER: As always the pleasure was mine.

[34]   MEMBER: Thank you. Good day to you all. Good day, Counsel.

[35]   This hearing is now concluded. ———- REASONS CONCLUDED ———-