1515353 (Refugee)

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal reviewed a decision not to grant protection visas to several applicants. The applicants sought protection on the basis of claims related to their ethnicity, imputed political opinion, membership of particular social groups, and fears of persecution and significant harm if returned to their country of origin or another African country.

The Tribunal was required to determine whether the applicants met the criteria for a protection visa, specifically whether they qualified as refugees under Article 1A(2) of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (as amended by the 1967 Protocol), or alternatively, whether they were entitled to complementary protection under section 36(2)(aa) of the Migration Act 1958 due to a real risk of significant harm upon removal from Australia.

The Tribunal considered the applicants' claims, which included fears stemming from perceived associations with genocide perpetrators, threats of killing, family members being killed, and past experiences of sexual violence. However, the Tribunal was not satisfied that the applicants had established a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, nor that there were substantial grounds for believing they would suffer significant harm as a necessary and foreseeable consequence of removal. Consequently, the Tribunal affirmed the decision not to grant the protection visas.