October 10-14
An Iranian family living in Nova Scotia, on the far eastern end of Canada, is facing deportation after their refugee claim was rejected — but in an unusual twist, they are to be sent to Iran even though they have never lived or even visited there.
Abbas Gholami, his wife Fatemeh Naserian Mochadam, and their five children arrived in Canada a couple of years ago. All family members were born and lived in Kuwait. However, due to their ethnic origins they are citizens of Iran and were not allowed to have Kuwaiti citizenship.
They say they left Kuwait after years of threatening phone calls from two of Mochadam’s cousins, according to documents filed in the Federal Court of Canada. Mochadam is of Arab ethnicity and says her 1995 marriage to her husband, who is a Persian ethnic, was viewed as shameful by some relatives who threatened to kill them.
But in February, an Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada tribunal rejected the family’s refugee claim. The Gholamis now face deportation from Canada — not to Kuwait, but to Iran.
The family is fighting the tribunal’s decision. At a Federal Court hearing last Wednesday in Halifax, the capital of the province of Nova Scotia, the Gholamis’ lawyer argued the family could face persecution if it is sent to Iran.
Attorney Scott McGirr says the family identifies with Arab culture and can’t even speak Farsi. Arabs, he argued, are discriminated against in Iran. “Arabs in Iran run a very real risk of persecution,” McGirr told the court.
A federal government lawyer acknowledged this is a “bit of an unusual case,” but argued the court should uphold the tribunal’s finding that the Gholamis don’t qualify as refugees as that is defined by the law.
Government lawyer Patricia MacPhee questioned the veracity of claims by the Gholamis that they faced years of harassment from Mochadam’s cousins. She said the tribunal did not believe the threatening phone calls would have lasted nearly two decades.
She notes that while the family may consider itself Arab by culture, they are also Shia Muslims. There is no evidence, MacPhee said, that the family would face persecution in Iran.
“The board’s findings were indeed reasonable,” she told the court.
