The Tribunal's decision
5 The delegate had refused to grant a protection visa to the applicant in January 2008. The tribunal accepted that the applicant had been an active member of the Awami League while at college in 2001. It accepted that he was a national of Bangladesh who had arrived here in November 2007 and sought a protection visa in December 2007. The tribunal found that the applicant had given evidence generally in a frank and truthful manner with certain exceptions, which turned out to be critical to its rejection of his claims. It accepted the applicant's claim that his brother had been assaulted by students or were members or supporters of the ruling BNP party and that that assault had been for the reason of the brothers' political opinion. It also accepted that his brother had been detained for 12 days after attending a gathering of supporters of the Awami League in Dhaka and was ill treated while in detention. The tribunal found that this was consistent with independent country information. It also accepted that the applicant's evidence that he had not been a member of the Awami League since leaving college in 2002 but considered himself to have continued to be a supporter.
6 However, the tribunal gave a number of reasons for rejecting his claim that he faced a real chance of serious harm in the reasonably foreseeable future for a Convention reason, being his political opinion. It found that the applicant had lived in Dhaka since 2003 but had had no problems of the kind he had claimed to have experienced earlier, despite his having continued to attend meetings of the Awami League on a regular basis. The tribunal concluded that there was a remote chance of the applicant being harmed, as he claimed, by the police either because of his presence at the meeting at which his brother had been arrested, or of his continuing support for the Awami League. It found that the Awami League continued to be a legal political party in Bangladesh and that it would be surprising if the applicant's mere presence as a supporter at a meeting of the party would result in any sustained interest in him by the police.
7 The tribunal rejected his claim that the police had continued to make enquiries about his family before the state of emergency had been declared in January 2007 in Bangladesh and it was not satisfied that the police had made enquiries of his family about him prior to that time. It noted that he had not made a claim that enquiries had been made since then and found that this feature also pointed to a lack of interest by the police in the applicant's whereabouts. It also found that he had continued to work for the same employer in Dhaka throughout the period in which he claimed to have been in fear, without any apparent police interest in him and that he had been able to attend Awami League meetings in that city, again without any police harassment of his attendances at such meetings.
8 The tribunal noted that when giving his address for his passport application, the applicant informed the authorities of his sister's address in Dhaka, when he could simply have provided a false or a different address. It found that the applicant's willingness to provide the sister's address showed a confidence that doing so would not lead to her coming under suspicion by the police because of her contact with him. It found that this conduct was not consistent with his claimed fear that the police were actively looking for him. The tribunal found that, while tens of thousands of people had been arrested in Bangladesh since the declaration of a state of emergency in January 2007 and more had been arrested since, there had been no interest by the police in the applicant's whereabouts during this period. It found that until his departure from Bangladesh he had continued to work, at the same office, without any official enquiries being made of him, or about him, or his family members or anyone else, that he had been issued with a valid Bangladesh passport and had been able to leave that country legally and openly. The tribunal rejected any connection between his claim that he had paid a bribe to avoid some police checks on his passport, finding that his passport would not have been refused because of his political opinion.
9 The tribunal also found that at the time of its hearing ordinary supporters of the Awami League were not at risk of being arrested because of their political opinions and the limitations on political activity in the country applied equally to supporters and members of all political parties. It noted evidence from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade that political gatherings of less than 50 people in Dhaka had been allowed under the state of emergency. The tribunal was satisfied that the applicant would be able to continue to participate in the level of political activities in which he had been involved before his departure from Bangladesh. It therefore found that he was not subject to any serious harm or limitations on his right to freedom of expression because of his political opinion in the years after leaving university and prior to the introduction of the emergency rule, despite the Awami League being in opposition.
10 The tribunal concluded that the chance was remote that he would face persecution for reason of his political opinion under similar circumstances in the future. Accordingly, it was satisfied, and found, that the applicant did not have a well founded fear of being persecuted for the convention reason of political opinion, or any other reason, were he to return to Bangladesh. The tribunal noted that it did not have jurisdiction to consider his circumstances on humanitarian grounds, as it had explained to him.