Iranian asylum seeker who argued he can't be deported because he's a 'sex toy smuggler' wins fight to stay in Britain

Daily Mail​

28-04-2025

An Iranian asylum seeker who said he can't be deported because of his X-rated job as a 'sex toy smuggler' has been allowed to remain in Britain.
The asylum seeker who applied for refugee status in the UK claimed that Iranian authorities looked on him 'adversely' for ferrying boxes of vibrators and other adult devices across the border.
Under Sharia law, which is implemented by the Iranian government, sex toys are illegal, there is also a travel ban on bringing adult devices into the country.
But the 'elaborate' argument made by the Iranian man, who has not been named, was dismissed by the British Asylum court.
Instead, he was allowed to stay because he protested against the Iranian regime in London.
The man, who came to the UK around four years ago, initially took the case to the First-tier Tribunal where he said he has come to the 'adverse attention of the Iranian authorities as a smuggler of sex toys'.
But it was heard that the tribunal did not buy all of his story as he had given 'inconsistent evidence about the number of boxes he smuggled'.
The First-tier Tribuna (FTT)l found that the Iranian's political expressions at demonstrations and subsequent anti-Iran posts on Facebook were not genuine and were a ruse to help him secure refugee status.
However, the Upper Tribunal of the Immigration and Asylum Chamber found the FTT made a mistake.
Upper Tribunal Judge Paul Lodato said the man attended nine demonstrations outside the Iranian Embassy in London.
Judge Lodato found that the Iranian would face 'real risk of persecution' in his home country and the man won his appeal on 'refugee convention' grounds.
He said: 'While it would be difficult to disagree with the FTT judge's findings that he could not be described as a central or prominent figure among these crowds, what this pattern of conduct does tend to show is that he has been committed to protesting against the Iranian regime over a period of almost four years since soon after he arrived in the UK.
'The [Home Office] argued that the fact that the [Iranian] began to engage in political activity so soon after he arrived tends to align with a fabricated claim which was being bolstered by false... activity.
'When looking at this pattern of behaviour through the lens of the standard of a reasonable degree of likelihood, it strikes me as far more likely that the [Iranian] has conducted himself in this way as soon as he was free to do so, and has continued to do so, because he was motivated by a genuine sense of political grievance.
'It can be seen that he has been posting anti-regime and pro-Kurdish rhetoric on a regular basis since October 2021.
'I have carefully considered the timing of his posts to assess whether his political opinions betrayed the mechanical and routine postings which might be expected of a metronomic and cynical excise designed to bolster a false asylum claim.
'I could discern no such patterns. Instead, the frequency resonated with a more natural engagement with political social media of this nature.'