Canada: the Roma’s next stop?
By Richard Warnica - Wednesday, December 14, 2011 - 0 Comments
Hungary is now Canada’s top source for refugee claimants, but success rates are dropping
Murad Sezer/Reuters
Robert fled his native Hungary in the winter of 2010. At 36, he had a job and a home in Budapest. He was doing well where many were not. (The economy in Hungary crashed in 2008 and has yet to recover.) But Robert—who did not want his last name used for fear of what might happen if he’s ever sent home—is also Roma. And for the Roma, life in Hungary, which was never easy, has become much more difficult of late.
Robert, who is working part-time as a caretaker in Toronto, says he was attacked and beaten three times by gangs of Hungarian nationalists. Not long ago, someone scrawled the word “cigány”—a nasty slang for Roma—on his apartment wall. Later, a Molotov cocktail exploded against his door. Robert flew with his wife and young son to Canada. There he joined a growing queue of Hungarian Roma seeking political asylum.
Since 2008, refugee claimants from the former Communist country have soared. From a paltry 34 in 2007, the number of Hungarian applicants climbed to 2,297 in 2010. That made Hungary the top source for refugee claimants in Canada that year (it continues to lead the category in 2011).
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Living in exile
By Michael Petrou - Monday, August 16, 2010 at 10:39 AM - 0 Comments
An Iranian man, at risk of being killed in his homeland for being gay, is trying to seek refuge in Canada
Photograph Milad Mahdavian
Edison wasn’t home the first time Iranian police came to arrest him. He had been photographed during the mass demonstrations that rocked Tehran following last year’s seemingly rigged presidential election.
When police couldn’t find Edison, they took his computer and scoured its hard drive. Sifting through his emails, photographs and Internet search history, they discovered he was gay. When the police returned to his house three days later, they were no longer interested in his politics. Edison’s mother answered the door. “The first thing we have to do is stone your faggot son,” they told her.
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Idea alert
By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 at 12:23 PM - 33 Comments
Jason Kenney introduces refugee system reforms.
To deal more quickly with those claimants, the government will replace political appointees on Immigration and Refugee Boards (IRB) with full-time civil servants. The government says this change and some others to IRBs will mean claimants can expect a hearing within 60 days rather than up to 19 months.
Secondly, the government proposes to divide the countries of the world into two groups: those with a good human rights record and those with a poor one. Refugee claimants arriving from a country that has a strong record on human rights will be able to appeal a negative decision at the IRB only to the Federal Court of Canada. Claimants from an “unsafe” country will have an extra level of appeals they can use if the IRB denies their refugee claim.
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Tarivona Asher Mutsengi 1983-2009
By Rachel Mendleson - Thursday, August 20, 2009 at 2:00 PM - 6 Comments
Forced to flee Zimbabwe, he longed to learn of farming here, and to take his knowledge home
Tarivona Asher Mutsengi was born on March 8, 1983, in Bulawayo, a city in southwestern Zimbabwe, the first of five children to Philip Gilbert, a businessman, and his wife, Martha. As a child, Asher, as everyone called him, spent most of his time in the nearby town of Plumtree, where Philip owned a gas station, and the family had enough land to grow watermelons and maize. During holidays, cousins, aunts and uncles would descend on their garden. With his wide smile and quick wit, Asher was always “the centre of attention,” says sister Rumbidzai, naturally assuming the leadership role in childhood games, pretending he was a priest (the family were devout Catholics) or a doctor. Whenever one of the kids had a loose tooth, he insisted that the new one would grow in faster if they let him remove it—which they did. “We believed everything that he told us because he was so convincing,” says Rumbidzai.In addition to their fields in Plumtree, the family had a farm in Gutu. At the time, they could have afforded to hire farmhands, but “my father preferred us doing it, so that we experienced it,” says Rumbidzai. Philip rewarded his children for good grades, and Asher had no trouble meeting those expectations; he was once given a bicycle for his academic achievements, and would let Rumbidzai ride it—as long as she paid him in chocolate. A member of the debate club, Asher held firm to his convictions. The only time he didn’t make the top spot in his class was on purpose, after an argument with his father. Says Rumbidzai, “He liked stressing his point, even if it was a losing side.” Continue…
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Our bad
By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, August 9, 2009 at 11:00 PM - 35 Comments
The Prime Minister gives Mexico the It’s-Not-You-It’s-Me treatment.
“This is not the fault of the government of Mexico – let me be very clear about this,” Mr. Harper told reporters, explaining his mid-July decision to clamp down on soaring bogus refugee claims from Mexico by requiring Mexicans to obtain visas before entering Canada. “This is a problem in Canadian refugee law which encourages bogus claims.”
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‘Gay’ refugee goes straight in bid to stay
By Michael Friscolanti - Wednesday, January 14, 2009 at 9:00 AM - 3 Comments
His gay claim didn’t work, so Oahiminre got married
To quote the judge, “the circumstances of this case are quite unusual.” In 2005, a Nigerian named Isaiah Oahiminre landed in Toronto and filed a refugee application, claiming his life was in danger back home because of his sexual orientation. He is gay. Or at least he was gay.
At first, Oahiminre told the Immigration and Refugee Board that gay men in Nigeria are considered “abominations,” and that he had no choice but to flee to Canada after his lover was “lynched by an angry mob.” But when the board rejected his claim, and a series of appeals didn’t pan out, Oahiminre tried a new strategy: he went straight.
