W346 v Minister for Immigration & Multicultural Affairs

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT Introduction 1 The applicant arrived in Australia on 11 September 2000. He did not have a passport. He said he was a stateless Palestinian refugee who had been born and lived in Syria. He was registered with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency ("UNRWA"). He lodged an application for a protection visa with the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs ("DIMA") on 8 March 2001. His application for a protection visa was refused on 4 April by a delegate of the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs. On 5 April, the applicant applied to the Refugee Review Tribunal ("the Tribunal") for a review of the decision refusing his protection visa. The Tribunal refused his application on 25 July. On 3 August, the applicant filed an application in this Court seeking review of the Tribunal's decision. The Factual Background - Claims and Evidence 2 The Tribunal referred to a record of an interview with the applicant on his arrival in Australia. His protection visa application, supporting written submissions and the record of an interview with an officer of the Department in support of that application. It had regard also to written submissions made in support of his application to the Tribunal and oral evidence which he gave to the Tribunal on 29 May. The applicant said that he was born in Damascus but spent many of his later years in Syria in the city of Homs. In the 1980s he obtained qualifications in advanced nursing and hospital administration. He had worked for three years at a hospital run by the Palestinian Red Crescent in the 1980s. This was in the Syrian city of Homs. He worked then as a nurse in Libya until 1995. From 1997 until 2000, he worked as a night manager of a charity hospital in Homs. When he returned from Libya he had found it hard to get a job for a year or so because he did not belong to the Ba'ath Party in Syria. The hospital where he eventually got a job took on people on the basis of their ability and qualifications. 3 At his initial interview with a departmental officer, the applicant said he had never been involved in any political activity or activity against the Syrian government. He gave evidence of contacts with Syrian authorities. He said he had been approached in 1986 by Syrian intelligence. He had been told he was known to have connections with Yassar Arafat who was not welcome in Syria. He was contacted again in 1997. A month after he began work at the hospital in Homs he was asked by security authorities to give the government information on who donated money to run the hospital. He was asked to tell where the money went and who was in charge of recruitment. He was asked to tell how hospital workers were recruited. He said he had refused and had told the hospital board about the approach. He said that for about six months from May 1997 he was approached each month by an intelligence officer. He was asked about his political affiliations and whether he supported the Ba'ath Party. He kept saying he was neutral. In 1998, he was questioned over his sacking of a nurse who was a Ba'ath member. The intelligence officer commented on his Palestinian origins. In January 1999, the hospital asked him to distribute food and money to a group of poor people. After he did this he says intelligence officers accused him of being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. 4 The applicant said that in January 2000, he and two other managers of the hospital were summoned to intelligence headquarters. They were detained for ten days without being questioned. He was accused of being an ungrateful dog of a Palestinian. He was alleged to have sacked Ba'ath Party members and members of the minority Alawite sect. The applicant told the officers he only employed people on the basis of their merit. He said he was abused by an intelligence officer. He was asked why a picture of the Syrian President had been taken down from a wall in the hospital. He said security authorities refused to believe that this was because the wall was being painted. He said they accused him of taking the picture down to show his disapproval of the government. He said he had been detained for two months and tortured every day. 5 In February 2000, a senior officer of intelligence summoned him and accused him of having sacked five Alawite hospital workers. He was also said to have harassed Alawites at the hospital by banning a kind of tea which they enjoyed. He said he had banned the drinking of this tea because it had blocked hospital drains. He said he was released after two days in detention and ordered to report every week to the security office. Three days later, however, he and the hospital's day and night shift managers were dismissed on the orders of political intelligence. He continued to report every week to the security office. On 10 June, he was told however not to report any more. At this time President Hafez al-Assad had just died. He heard in July 2000, that the former day manager at the hospital had been arrested by intelligence. He said that he then fled from Homs to Damascus. His wife rang and told him that the former night manager had also been arrested. The intelligence people had come to his home in Homs to look for him. She also told him seven doctors from the hospital had been arrested. 6 The applicant said that on 27 August he left Syria after bribing a colonel to take him safely past the Damascus airport security desk. The Tribunal noted that in evidence which he had previously given the applicant said he had left Syria on a passport in his own name. The Tribunal referred to documents on the applicant's file. One was said to be a note from the Political Security Bureau of Homs to the Head of the Administration of the Charity and Social Services Association. This required three clerks in the Association to be sacked. There was also a letter of reference from the hospital in Homs. The third document appeared to be a summons from the Political Security Bureau. 7 The applicant's advisers wrote to the Tribunal in April 2001, stating that the applicant had heard from his wife that Syrian intelligence had summoned her for questioning several times. They wanted to know where he was. His niece who worked at the Al-bir Hospital had been detained for two weeks. The applicant's advisers also wrote to the Tribunal on 12 April saying that he had heard from his wife that she was now living with her sister. The advisers told the Tribunal that his wife's telephone lines were being tapped. She had told Syrian intelligence that he was working in Australia. 8 On 28 May, the applicant's advisers gave country information to the Tribunal relating to Syria. The Tribunal's Findings 9 In its findings and reasons the Tribunal accepted that the applicant is a Palestinian refugee born and residing in Syria and registered with UNRWA. It referred to Article 1(D) of the Convention and expressed unease about its claimed operation. That Article would appear to exclude people being assisted by UNRWA from the operation of the Convention. I have held, in the case of Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs v Quiader [2001] FCA 1458, that the Article does not have that operation. That does not affect the outcome of this case because the Tribunal found that even if not excluded by Article 1(D) the applicant was not a refugee under Article 1(A) of the Convention. That is to say, the Tribunal was not satisfied that the applicant had a well-founded fear of persecution under the Convention. 10 It was accepted that the applicant had gone to Libya and that his term of work there was terminated in 1995. It was accepted that, like other Palestinians then working in Libya, he had to return home to Syria and to find other work. The Tribunal did not believe his claims that he was being targeted by Syrian security forces. It did not accept that he suffered harassment and discrimination in employment because he was Palestinian, nor did it accept that he suffered discrimination or harassment because he was not a member of the Ba'ath Party. He had referred to independent evidence which did not demonstrate that Palestinians face significant disadvantages in their employment in Syria. 11 The applicant's own record did not show that the fact he was not a member of the Ba'ath Party prevented him from being employed. He was in steady employment except for about two years after returning home from Libya. The Tribunal did not believe his claims that he was hounded by Syrian security at the Al-bir Hospital. If the Syrian authorities wanted to know who donated money to run the hospital, where the money went and the other matters they asked about, they could easily have found that out. The Tribunal did not believe that if they wanted the information, they could not obtain it openly from the top hospital manager. They did not need to rely on the applicant who was a reluctant new middle-level employee of the hospital. The Tribunal found it most implausible that the Syrian authorities would have unsuccessfully to pester him over several years to get them information. 12 The Tribunal referred to the applicant's claims that Syrian authorities were targeting him in the hospital because it was run by a Sunni charity. He also claimed that the authorities were targeting the hospital because it charged patients low rates. The Tribunal did not believe these claims. It did not accept that the majority of Sunnis were repressed and regarded as enemies in Syria. Sunnis make up seventy five per cent of the population and the President's wife is Sunni. It was said that the applicant attempted to use the Alawite and Sunni division to claim that he had been detained, interrogated and tortured and ordered to be dismissed from his job by the intelligence services. The Tribunal did not believe his claims about being targeted by intelligence services because he took down a painting of the Syrian President or that he had banned a beverage favoured by Alawite hospital workers. It did not believe that Syrian intelligence had detained and tortured him for having sacked a few hospital workers. It was not satisfied that his actions would have been viewed as anti-Alawite given that two of the five workers sacked were not Alawite. 13 In relation to the applicant's claims that he was thought to be a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and therefore opposed to government, the Tribunal was not satisfied that he would necessarily have been an object of any concern to Syrian security. The Tribunal in the end considered that the applicant had invented his claims of persecution. It was of the firm opinion that he had fabricated the document allegedly sent by security forces ordering his dismissal and requesting him to report to them. The Tribunal was not persuaded that he left Syria because he was afraid of persecution. It was not satisfied that he left the country illegally. It considered that he left normally and openly. Even if he had left illegally, he would not face persecution for any Convention reason if he were to be returned. In the event, the Tribunal was not satisfied that the applicant had a well-founded fear of persecution for a Convention reason. Conclusion 14 The Tribunal's decision was based on its rejection of the applicant's stories. It was entitled to take the view that it did. I can detect no error of law in the approach that it has taken and nothing that the applicant has said indicates that any such error has occurred. The application must therefore be dismissed. The applicant must pay the Minister's costs of the application. I certify that the preceding fourteen (14) numbered paragraphs are a true copy of the Reasons for Judgment herein of the Honourable Justice French.