Critics say the case of Fatemeh Derakhshandeh Tosarvandan, whose claim for asylum was rejected last October, calls into question whether harsh new restrictions on refugee claims breach Canada’s Charter of Rights.
“The average Canadian would be horrified to know that we’re going to send a woman to Iran to be stoned for adultery,” said Tosarvandan’s lawyer, Lisa Winter-Card. Ironically, Canada recently suspended relations with Iran on the grounds that it is a state sponsor of terrorism.
All refugee claimants are now banned from applying for a pre-removal risk assessment (PRRA) within a year of receiving a negative answer on their claim. The assessment is a second chance to consider whether it is truly safe to send a rejected claimant back.
Tosarvandan’s claim, based on threats made by her estranged husband, Mahmoud Hafezi Mashhadi, was refused because she couldn’t prove at the time that he had persuaded Tehran authorities to charge her with adultery.
Although Winter-Card has since obtained documents testifying to the charge laid (of being a “disobedient betrayer”), the new evidence cannot be considered by Canada Border Service Agency officials because of the one-year rule, which took effect June 29.
Winter-Card has asked CBSA to defer Tosarvandan’s removal to late October, allowing time to submit the new evidence. But the agency has only agreed to delay the removal for one week.
“The fact that a removals officer can blithely tell me that he can’t wait to allow a risk assessment to be conducted based on the new evidence shows just how far CBSA has drifted from Canadian values,” the lawyer said.
In many recent cases, officials have stayed removals to permit rejected refugees to wait out the one-year ban.
Tosarvandan said she wed her abusive husband in 1993 through an arranged marriage. The couple moved to Dubai three years later with their infant son.
She claimed her husband abruptly fled Dubai in 2009 amid fraud allegations, and she was reluctant to join him in Tehran.
She and her son flew to Toronto in 2010 to seek asylum after her family in Tehran told her Mashhadi “circulated information that I committed adultery.”
Tosarvandan has denied the charge and said she fears for her life if returned to Iran because she wouldn’t get a fair trial. Despite an internationally publicized case last year in which a woman narrowly escaped being stoned, judges in Iran are still allowed to impose that penalty for adultery.
With an Iranian lawyer’s help, Winter-Card gained access to court documents in Tehran to confirm the charges. She is seeking an emergency stay from the federal court. “Life is not cut and dried,” she said. “Situations do change and we need to be flexible with our system.”
Toronto lawyer Chantal Desloges said one of her clients had his removal deferred in August, after she threatened to launch a Charter challenge. She believes Ottawa is trying to avoid such challenges to keep the PRRA ban from being overturned in court.
While those with the means and will for a court battle get a reprieve, Desloges said hundreds of others unaware of their rights are being deported.
CBSA officials, she said, “don’t want the issue decided by court because they understand the gap, and the ban is indefensible.”
Original Article
Source: the star
Author: Nicholas Keung
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