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Converts’ Immigration Appeal Based on New Evidence
by Barbara G. Baker
ISTANBUL, July 30 (Compass) -- The Canadian Embassy in Ankara summoned an Iranian
Christian family stranded in central Turkey for a second immigration interview today,
igniting hopes that the government of Canada is giving fresh consideration to their case
for religious asylum.
Accompanied by his wife and three daughters, Mahmoud Erfani was granted a 90-minute
interview this morning by a Canadian immigration official. Although Erfani’s first
application to the Canadian Embassy was rejected in late April, this second interview was
granted on the basis of “new and relevant information” which the Iranian convert
to Christianity submitted to the embassy on June 21.
In a four-page letter, Erfani had detailed Iranian government persecution of several
relatives in his native city of Mashhad since he fled Iran three years ago. He also
produced a Turkish court indictment against an Iranian Muslim who harassed him and his
family in Nevsehir this past April for leaving Islam to become Christians.
Speaking by telephone from Ankara, Erfani said that Canadian officials told him during his
interview today that he would receive a letter at his postal address in Nevsehir,
informing him of their decision on his case. After they examined his temporary Turkish
residence permit, renewed earlier this month and due to expire on September 28, Erfani
said he was assured that the answer would not be delayed.
Immigration to Canada appears to be the only option left for the Erfani family, who fled
across the Iranian border to Turkey in July 1999. Although they were granted temporary
residency in Turkey, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Ankara
turned down their request for official refugee status and also denied two subsequent
appeals, leaving them liable for deportation back to Iran.
But after an Anglican church in Toronto pledged full sponsorship for the family in June
2001, the Canadian Embassy in Ankara announced last August they would allow the Erfanis to
apply for immigration. Canada remains one of the few Western nations accepting immigrants
who have not been able to obtain formal UNHCR refugee status.
The Erfanis waited nine months for their April 18 interview at the Canadian Embassy, only
to be informed five days later that their application was denied. No reasons were cited in
the letter, although their sponsoring church in Canada believed Mrs. Erfani’s poor
health was a determining factor. Now in a wheelchair, Erfani’s wife, Atefeh, suffers
from advancing multiple sclerosis diagnosed eight years ago.
Erfani was assisted in preparing a written appeal to the Canadian authorities which he
filed at the Canadian Embassy on June 21. Two weeks later, Nevsehir police authorities
extended his family’s expired residence permits, explaining the renewals had been
authorized by UNHCR officials in Ankara.
In the second week of July, Erfani received a mailed summons from the immigration section
of the Canadian Embassy in Ankara, inviting him with his family for a personal interview
on July 30 “to determine your admissibility to Canada” as a permanent resident.
As former Muslims who converted to Christianity 21 years ago, Mahmoud and Atefeh Erfani
were subjected to growing hostility in their native Mashhad, Iran, by agents of the secret
police and “Basijis,” paramilitary Muslim vigilantes endorsed by the Islamic
regime. During the 1990s, a convert Christian pastor in the city had been executed for
apostasy, the city’s two Protestant churches were forced to close and three other
convert couples were arrested, threatened and booked on apostasy charges.
The Erfanis themselves were evicted from their home in the spring of 1999, and Erfani was
abducted and threatened repeatedly by local authorities to renounce his Christian faith
and return to Islam. But when they arrived in Turkey, they had no documents to
“prove” their claims of overt and ongoing religious persecution.
“Canada’s rejection of this family as convention refugees is becoming somewhat
of an international embarrassment,” Member of Parliament Paul E. Forseth of the
Canadian House of Commons wrote to the Canadian Embassy in Ankara in mid May. “What
is so problematic about this family, other than the wife has MS?
“I would hope that our embassy will review this file and find a way to permit these
folks to come to Canada,” Forseth concluded.
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