1500427 (Refugee)

This matter concerned an application for protection visas by a woman from Egypt and her children. The applicant claimed that she and her children had been kidnapped for ransom during a visit to Egypt in 2013, and she feared that if returned to Egypt, she and her children would face further kidnapping, sexual assault, or organ harvesting. The applicant's father-in-law provided a statement corroborating the alleged kidnapping incident. The Tribunal was required to consider the applicant's claims under both the *Refugee Convention* and the complementary protection provisions of Australian migration law.

The primary legal issues before the Tribunal were whether the applicant and her children had a well-founded fear of persecution for a Convention reason if returned to Egypt, and whether there were substantial grounds for believing that they would suffer significant harm as a necessary and foreseeable consequence of being removed from Australia to Egypt. These considerations were to be made in light of Ministerial Direction No. 56, which mandates the consideration of relevant policy guidelines and country information assessments.

The Tribunal found that there was no credible evidence to support the applicant's claims of kidnapping or a real chance of future harm upon return to Egypt. The Tribunal did not accept the applicant as a credible witness and therefore did not accept that she had a well-founded fear of persecution for a Convention reason. Consequently, the Tribunal was not satisfied that Australia had protection obligations towards the applicant and her children under the *Refugee Convention* or the complementary protection provisions. The Tribunal affirmed the decision not to grant the applicants protection visas.