Daily Mail 07.11.03 page 45. Strap across the top of the page: Iranians court victory could create a back door into Britain, says judge Headline: Muslim asylum seekers convert to Christianity to stay in the UK

Intro: Asylum seekers may increasingly seek a back door into Britain by converting to Christianity once they arrive, a High Court judge warned yesterday.

He spoke out following the case of an Iranian Muslim who initially failed to gain asylum but was then baptised into the Church of England.

Now Farshid Shirazi has won his fight to have his asylum case reconsidered because he could face execution in his home country for abandoning the Islamic faith.

Story continues that the Court of Appeal judge, Lord Justice Sedley, sitting with Lord Justice Mummery, and Mr Justice Munby, allowed the appeal but warned that the case would create: a back door to asylum.

He apparently suggested that immigration officials assess whether such converts are genuine as British churches face dwindling congregations, and welcome, and even seek out converts.

However, the judges found Mr Shirazs conversion sincere, and ordered the Home Office to re-examine his asylum claim taking the conversion into account.

The story explains that Mr Shiraz came here from Iran in 2001 and claimed asylum as his family were linked to the opposition Mujahadin group and he was arrested at a student protest, but his claim was rejected, but allowed on appeal following his conversion into the Church of England in Pontefract, West Yorkshire,

Then the Home Office appealed to an immigration appeals tribunal that only converts who tried to convert others faced persecution, and said that there was no evidence as to how often the Iranians actually executed apostates.

However Lord Justice Sedley said that in future applicants would have to give more. He went on to say: I am conscious of the ever present risk of creating a back-door to asylum by allowing claims to apostasy on the part of nationals of theocratic states to establish, without more evidence a well-founded fear of persecution. That no doubt makes great caution appropriate in deciding both on the genuineness of conversions and on the question of causation.”

Interesting, but unsurprising that The Mail, with no other evidence, is ready to create a warning of a possible danger by an appeal court Judge that he was conscious of an ever present risk of creating a back door to asylum by allowing Muslims to claim that conversion leaves them with a well founded fear of persecution ,into a definite claim that Muslim asylum seekers are actually doing this.

Not for the first time the paper takes a statement, this time by a Judge, that he is worried about creating a back door to asylum, into a warning that it actually will create a back door to asylum.

Obviously the paper cannot see the difference between being mindful of a possible danger, and a statement that that danger actually exists. Not that this is anything new with a paper that uses any evidence, however tenuous, to support its campaign.