Bangladeshi seeks asylum in NZ by pretending to be a Rohingya

An asylum seeker's claim has been rejected after he pretended to be a Rohingya Muslim, but couldn't speak a word of the language.

The man, whose identity is suppressed, claimed he was born in Myanmar and lived his entire life in Bangladesh keeping his ethnic identity hidden from the wider community.

But the 28-year-old man was unable to say 'hello' or 'thank you' in the Rohingya dialect.

Bruce Burson of the Immigration and Protection Tribunal (IPT) said the tribunal had rejected the man's asylum claim and were in "no doubt" the man was, and always had been, a Bangladeshi.

Rohingya Muslims are an ethnic minority in Myanmar and were described as one of the world's most persecuted minorities by the special representative of the UN Secretary General in 2017.

Many fled to neighbouring Bangladesh during military crackdowns in 1978, 1990 and most recently an inter-ethnic conflict which flared up in 2012. 

The man, who the tribunal referred to as CJ, claimed he fled Myanmar in the early 1990s as the youngest of four Rohingya children.

He claimed his elder siblings drowned during a boat ride between a UNHCR refugee camp and Brisal in Bangladesh.

Burson said the man did his schooling in Bangladesh and moved to the United Kingdom in 2009 on a student visa under what he claimed was his false Bangladeshi identity. 

CJ got married to a Bangladeshi woman while he was in England and his wife also never told her parents he was a Rohingya, the tribunal heard.

The man later tried to lodge a work visa application in the UK using a set of false documents.

After the UK deported him in 2015, he came to New Zealand on a student visa and applied for asylum.

CLAIMS CRUMBLE
CJ was unable to speak a basic phrase or greeting in Rohingya, something Burson said was "implausible".

"It is highly unlikely that he would not even be able to speak one word of the language had he truly been a Rohingya."

His other claims began to fall apart as the tribunal began to unpick his testimony, particularly a claim that he was 'DD', an ethnic Rohingya who was registered at a UNHCR camp in the 1990s, and whose name is suppressed.

"It seems likely that a genuine Rohingya refugee book, or copy thereof, has somehow been obtained and is being utilised by the appellant to claim, falsely, that he is the real DD," Burson said.

The village-of-origin recorded on UNHCR documents were also different to the one CJ claimed and he could not "sensibly explain" why this might have happened, Burson said.

UNHCR records showed CJ's alleged family had actually been sent back to Myanmar in 1993.

"There is no logical reason why the book would be falsified to include this information."

Burson said the tribunal was also in "no doubt" a Myanmar birth certificate CJ presented to the tribunal was fake.

"He is a person who is at ease with producing false documents to achieve particular migration-related ends."

Rohingya live in Rakhine State on the Myanmar side of the Myanmar-Bangladesh border.

They are often described by Myanmar's government as illegal Bangladeshi migrants, but are effectively stateless.

Rohingya have no citizenship or refugee rights in Bangladesh and are classified as 'Forcibly Displaced Myanmar Nationals' when they arrive.

Source: Stuff.co.nz