Date: 20001106
Docket: IMM-5747-99
BETWEEN:
HABIBA FUSEINI, a.k.a.
HABIBA SARAH FUSEINI
Applicant
- and -
THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP
AND IMMIGRATION
Respondent
REASONS FOR ORDER
SIMPSON J.
[1] This application is for judicial review of a decision of the Convention Refugee Determination Division of the Immigration and Refugee Board (the "Board") dated October 19, 1999. Habiba Fuseini (the "Applicant") is a woman from Nigeria who alleged persecution on the grounds of her renunciation of Islam and conversion to the Christian faith. The Board ruled against the Applicant on the basis that her evidence was not credible.
Facts
[2] The Applicant is a citizen of Nigeria and was aged 44 at the time of her refugee hearing in October of 1999. She was born into the Muslim faith, and at age 16 she entered into an arranged marriage in which she became the third wife of an older Muslim man. She has a son and a daughter who remain in Nigeria.
[3] After many peaceful years of marriage, the Applicant decided to renounce her Muslim faith and become a Christian. This led to irreconcilable differences between the Applicant and her husband. She told the Board that her husband beat her on two occasions and that she was hospitalized after each beating. After one beating, she went to the police, but they told her that it was a family matter and that she should ask some elders in the community to resolve the dispute. After another incident, she ran to the police, followed by her husband. The policeman in charge told her that she should go home and be an obedient wife.
[4] The Applicant's husband kept her from attending church. However, the Applicant ran a stall at the market and was able to communicate with church members at that location. On April 2, 1998, with the aid of church members, she fled to Lagos. Her husband sent messengers looking for her at the homes of her relatives. There she remained in hiding, in the home of a cousin of a church member, until May 22, 1998, when, with funds provided by church elders, she flew to Canada.
[5] The Applicant filed for Convention refugee status on May 26, 1998. Her claim was heard before a single-member board on August 4, 1999, and the Board's decision, which rejected her claim, was rendered on October 19, 1999.
The Board's Decision and Discussion
[6] The Board concluded that there was "...no reliable, credible or trustworthy evidence before it with respect to the claimant's conversion to Christianity". The Board noted: (i) that the Applicant did not provide a letter from her church in Nigeria confirming either her conversion or the fact that the church (as opposed to a friend who belonged to the church) helped her to leave Nigeria; (ii) that she had not been baptized and had no current plans for baptism; and (iii) that she did not know the meaning of Christmas or Easter. In that regard, she initially testified that Christmas was a day of repentance which involved the death of Christ. In my view, the transcript does not show that the Applicant was confused, as Applicant's counsel suggested, but rather shows ignorance of the critical elements of the Christian religion. The Board found that the Applicant's lack of knowledge was incompatible with her claim that she had been a Christian in Canada through two Christmas and two Easter celebrations.
[7] I have concluded that the Board was correct in its assessment of this evidence and that, based on this evidence alone, it was open to the Board to conclude that the Applicant is not a Christian. I agree with counsel for the Applicant that other evidence on which the Board relied to reach its conclusion was not as persuasive as the clear evidence described above but, given my conclusion that that evidence alone was sufficient, I have determined that it is immaterial whether Board also considered less compelling matters.
[8] Applicant's counsel took issue with the fact that the Board noted that a letter dated July 25, 1999, from the Rhema Assemblies of God Inc. in Etobicoke, Ontario, did not specifically say that the Applicant was a Christian. However, the letter said that the Applicant had "joined the church" and mentioned that she was active in the church choir and taught gospel songs to young children. In these circumstances, the Applicant said that the Board's conclusion that she was not a Christian was perverse.
[9] I agree that, normally, the phrase "joining the church" would cause one to infer that the person involved was a baptized Christian who had become a member of a congregation. However, in view of the evidence described in paragraph [8] above, it is my conclusion that the Board was entitled to conclude that the Applicant was not entitled to the benefit of the normal inference, and treat this letter only as evidence that the Applicant joined the church so that she could participate in its music programme.
[10] Given that the Board did not accept that the Applicant was a Christian, it also concluded that the Applicant's claim, that she had suffered spousal abuse as a result of her religious conversion, was unfounded. However, it also considered the facts and noted that the Applicant's best friend and the Applicant's daughter (who is a medical doctor in Nigeria) did not corroborate her account of the second beating which led to her second hospitalization. The Applicant challenged the Board's finding that there was a major inconsistency between the date given for the second hospitalization in the Applicant's personal information form ("PIF"), which the Board said was the second week in February 1998, and the date of March 2, 1998, given in the report from the Jinya Medical Clinics Ltd. in Kaduna, Nigeria (the "Report").
[11] In my view, the Board's assessment of the Applicant's PIF was not accurate because, in her PIF, the Applicant only stated that she was hospitalized in the month of February 1998. Her PIF did not give a definite date for her beating and hospitalization. What she said was that the second beating was caused by her return to church in the second week of February. The Board assumed that the PIF said that the beating occurred immediately after her return to church in the second week of February but, as noted above, the PIF only said that the beating was in February. That could have meant the end of February and, if it did, there was no major inconsistency between the PIF and the Report.
[12] However, the inconsistency was confirmed in the Applicant's oral evidence. At the hearing she testified, at page 27 of the transcript, that, after the second beating, she stopped going to church for eight months as of the second week in February. This indicated that the beating took place in mid-February, yet the Report showed admission to the clinic on March 2, 1998. Accordingly, I am satisfied that the Board did not err when it concluded that the Applicant's claim of spousal abuse was not credible.
[13] For all these reasons, the application will be dismissed.
(Sgd.) "Sandra J. Simpson"
Judge
Vancouver, B.C.
November 6, 2000
NAMES OF COUNSEL AND SOLICITORS OF RECORD
STYLE OF CAUSE: HABIBA FUSEINI, a.k.a.
HABIBA SARAH FUSEINI
- and -
THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP
AND IMMIGRATION
COURT NO.: IMM-5747-99
PLACE OF HEARING: Toronto, Ontario
DATE OF HEARING: October 5, 2000
REASONS FOR ORDER: SIMPSON J.
DATED: November 6, 2000
APPEARANCES:
Yiadom Atuobi-Danso for Applicant
Jeremiah Eastman for Respondent
SOLICITORS OF RECORD:
Yiadom A. Atuobi-Danso
Toronto, Ontario for Applicant
Morris Rosenberg for Respondent
Deputy Attorney General of Canada
Ottawa, Ontario