Hi all
Depressing story coming up.
A few months ago, two young (mid 20s) Iranians along with their 2yo turned up at our church in Glasgow. Turns out they’d converted from Islam to Christianity whilst living out in Tehran and had subsequently been hunted down by the police over there. They managed to escape by being in the right place at the right time but have reason to strongly believe that their Christian friends have been either permanently imprisoned or hung (!) as a result of their new faith. They paid traffickers to get them to Turkey in the back of a lorry and then on to the UK using fake passports on a flight.
Upon arrival over here they’ve flung themselves into the church community, getting involved in literally everything they can, coming along to events three or four times a week and showing a lot of genuine interest. We have no reason to disbelieve paragraph 1 as there’s evidence they were a very well off family in Iran (he was an engineer, she was an accountant) with multiple cars and a nice house i.e. if they’d fancied a move to the UK in normal circumstances they could have afforded to do it without doing it illegally.
Their initial claim for asylum has been rejected.
We don’t know why.
They’re obviously now terrified that they’ll be sent back to Iran and face dire consequences for their beliefs if their appeal isn’t successful.
What can I do to help? Is there anywhere that I can submit evidence on their behalf, or testify in their favour? (we keep attendance logs of all meetings so have evidence that they have been attending our church regularly if that would help)
All advice appreciated. It’s an entirely rubbish situation.
