Witchcraft Persecution as Religious Persecution under the Refugee Convention - Ismaila Demba v SSHD [2015] UKUT 01405 (IAC)
by Katia Bianchini
Question(s) at stake
Whether internal relocation was a viable alternative for the appellant, an asylum seeker from the Gambia who feared witchcraft persecution on the ground of religious beliefs.
Outcome of the ruling
The appellant had, like his father, been persecuted for his religious beliefs by the police: the Upper Tribunal therefore ruled that no viable internal relocation alternative existed for him.
Country:
Official citation
Ismaila Demba v SSHD [2015] UKUT 01405 (IAC)
Topic(s)
Keywords:
Failure of State protection Grounds/Reasons of persecution Internal relocation alternative Religion and belief
Tag(s):
Bibliographic information
Access case report
View case report in the CUREDI databaseAbout the authors
Katia Bianchini (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Department Law and Anthropology, Germany)
Katia Bianchini is a Research Fellow of the Law and Anthropology Department of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle. She holds a law degree from the University of Pavia (Italy), an LL.M. in Comparative Laws from the University of San Diego (California, USA), and a Ph.D. in Law from the University of York (UK). Her doctoral thesis provided an empirical and legal analysis of how the 1954 UN Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons is implemented in ten EU states. She has also worked as a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity (Göttingen). Before engaging in research, she practised immigration and refugee law for ten years in the UK and the USA.
Bianchini has published in the field of refugee law, statelessness, and the rule of law in the context of sea migration. Her current research builds on her expertise in human rights and Italian law and looks at the treatment of deceased sea migrants in the South of Italy.