Justice Ministry routinely falsifies refugee applications to reject asylum seekers

Posted on : 2019-06-19 17:39 KST Modified on : 2019-06-19 17:39 KST
Interview records for several applicants found to be nearly identical
A rally for asylum seekers at the National Human Rights Commission in Seoul on June 18. (Park Jong-shik
A rally for asylum seekers at the National Human Rights Commission in Seoul on June 18. (Park Jong-shik

In May 2016, Rahim (pseudonym) came to South Korea with his wife, fleeing danger in the guise of the Egyptian government. Rahim had been one of the leaders of the April 6 Youth Movement, in 2008, and had organized protests against the dictatorship led by former President Hosni Mubarak. Then in April 2014, the organization to which Rahim belonged was outlawed by the Egyptian government.

In June, the month after his arrival, Rahim applied for refugee status. The resulting interview left him feeling baffled. “I tried to talk about the protests I’d been in, the number of times I’d been arrested, and the soldiers breaking my legs, but the interviewer told me to keep my replies simple and didn’t even ask me to submit any documentation. The interviewer kept asking me about things that were irrelevant to what I’d written on my application, such as how much money I have,” Rahim said.

South Korea’s Ministry of Justice turned down Rahim’s application for refugee status.

When Rahim looked into why his application had been rejected, he learned that the written record of his interview contained things he hadn’t said. The record said that Rahim had applied for refugee status under false pretenses so that he could return to Egypt after earning a lot of money in South Korea. In the end, Rahim filed a lawsuit asking the courts to overturn the rejection of his application, and after a long legal struggle, he was granted refugee status last year.

On June 18, a rally was held in front of the office of South Korea’s National Human Rights Commission, in downtown Seoul, to give asylum seekers a chance to talk about how their interviews had been misreported by the Ministry of Justice. During the rally, five asylum seekers said their interview records at the immigration office incorrectly stated that they’d made their application because they wanted to work in South Korea. “When I visited the court to proceed with an administrative lawsuit after my refugee application was rejected, I learned that my sex was recorded as being not female, but male,” said an Arab woman named Muna (pseudonym).

Kwon Yeong-sil, an attorney who has represented asylum-seekers in administrative lawsuits, argued that the records of interviews of asylum seekers at the immigration office were nearly identical, as if they’d been copied and pasted. “When we put together similar cases of falsified records of refugee interviews, the interview records were nearly the same, almost copies of each other, and the signatures of the interpreter were the same as well,” Kwon said.

“The refugee status examiners who are in charge of the interviews play a uniquely important role in making decisions on applications for refugee status, holding carte blanche in the process. Even so, the interviews and questioning of asylum-seekers take place behind closed doors, without any external supervision or oversight,” said Kim Yeon-ju, a member of the Center for Refugee Rights in South Korea (NANCEN), the group that organized the rally.

In July 2018, NANCEN lodged a complaint with the National Human Rights Commission in regard to the interview records that had been falsified by the refugee status examiners and the Arabic interpreters during the review of refugee status applications.

Regarding the alleged falsification of records of interviews with refugee applicants, the Justice Ministry announced, “We have completed initial investigations of three immigration officers responsible for interviewing refugee applicants at the Seoul and Yangju Immigration Offices, and proper measures will be taken after the human rights investigation is complete.”

By Kwon Ji-dam, staff reporter

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