Association
The All-Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom of Religion or Belief (APPG) reported in June that asylum claims from Christian converts are being unfairly rejected because officials are making basic mistakes about the faith.
The Home Office, it appears, isn’t sticking to its own guidelines. MPs said some converts were rejected because they couldn’t name the twelve apostles or recall ‘Bible trivia’, despite evidence that they practised Christianity.
The Home Office’s guidance says officials deciding asylum claims must decide whether the applicant genuinely adheres to the religion, but stresses they are not qualified to assess anything other than answers to ‘basic questions’ about faith. But, in their report, the MPs said there was evidence that this lack of expert knowledge had perversely encouraged assessors to focus on simplistic trivia, rather than searching questions about why someone had converted in the first place.
