We are familiar with the realities and the
problems facing the international community due to the large presence of asylum
seekers. While we understand that financial deals with weak regimes are the most
beneficial form of trade, it is clear that if economic and political support for
despotic regimes continues, the problem of asylum will only increase. There
should be no doubt that eradicating the root cause of flight is the only
satisfactory solution. These can be identified in the behaviour of despotic
regimes of the asylum seekers’ home countries and international engagement for
financial gain.
It should be recognised that even building iron walls, disregarding
international standards in assessing asylum claims, removing rights of appeal or
enforced deportations would not be a successful deterrent in the long term if
the issue were not resolved at its root.
Iranian asylum seekers are no exception and
their numbers are alarmingly on the increase. Over seventy percent of Iranians
are below the age of thirty. None of the Islamic Republic’s factions, reformist
or hardline, have the answers to the needs of Iran’s young population. The
Islamic Republic’s internal bickering and fighting will not produce the
solutions to poverty, unemployment, social problems, or lack of national and
international credibility.
In the face of numerous repeated
international censures the Islamic Republic attempts to offer traditions and
cultural differences as an acceptable defence for its abusive and unacceptable
behaviour. Firstly, cultural differences are not an excuse for violation of
rights. Secondly, these cultural differences allude to the regime’s ideology and
not the wishes and practices of the Iranian people.
According to the 1951 Geneva Convention relating to the status of Refugees, a
refugee is a person who "owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for
reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group,
or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable
to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of
that country."
At European immigration courts ACI has successfully argued that:
