In his Opinion delivered on Wednesday 25 July in Case C-56/17, Advocate General Paolo Mengozzi held that an applicant requesting international protection on the grounds of being at risk of religious persecution does not necessarily have to publicly perform acts related to his beliefs or demonstrate in written evidence the material grounds of his allegations.
In this case, Bahtiyar Fahti, an Iranian national of Kurdish origin, filed an application for international protection with the Bulgarian authorities in 2016 on the grounds that he was persecuted by the Iranian authorities for religious reasons.
He claims that he converted to Christianity in Iran around 2009 and also used to watch the banned Christian channel Nejat TV, as well as taking part on one occasion, in one of its broadcasts, which led to him being arrested, detained and interrogated for two days by the Iranian secret services. In June 2012, he reportedly left Iran illegally for Iraq, where he remained until the end of 2015 as an asylum seeker.
The Bulgarian authorities rejected his application for international protection on the grounds that his statements were “implausible and undermined by significant contradictions” and that he had not been subjected to any persecution between the period of his arrest in 2009 and his departure from Iran in 2012. Mr Fathi took the matter to the Bulgarian courts.
Before reaching its decision, the Bulgarian court requested clarification from the European Court of Justice with regard to assessing the existence of grounds for religious persecution based under the terms of Directive 2011/95, which sets out the conditions for benefiting from international protection.
In his Opinion, the Advocate General begins by pointing out that the notion of “religion” in Directive 2011/95 provides a broad definition by including all its components.
He explains that this “covers both the fact in itself of having religious beliefs, even in the absence of any external manifestation thereof, as the public expression of these beliefs”. He also adds that religion is considered as a belief, identity or way of life.
According to the latter this flexibility subsequently means that an applicant for international protection who invokes the risk of persecution for religious reasons would not be required to provide information on all elements of the notion of “religion” or to demonstrate the materiality of its claims in this respect.
The Advocate General provides some further clarification of the assessment criteria and then holds that the existence of the persecution depends on the seriousness of the infringement of the freedom of religion of the asylum seeker in addition to the seriousness of the acts to which the applicant is exposed if that freedom is exercised in his country of origin.
The Advocate General therefore concludes the fact that the law of the applicant's country of origin punishes conduct related to the exercise of religious freedom by disproportionate or discriminatory punishment, is sufficient to uphold the existence of persecution, if it transpires that such penalties are actually applied and that the applicant is at a serious risk of suffering them if he returns to that country. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)