Canada Just Granted Refugee Status To A Guy Fleeing Australia
He may actually be the first Australian refugee.
A man named Stevan Utah has just become the first known refugee from Australia, after Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board accepted that the Australian government failed to provide him with adequate protection.
That’s a pretty unusual decision — it’s a really high bar to prove you need to seek asylum from a “highly-developed democracy such as Australia”, as the Canadian IRB put it. But after reviewing all the evidence, the ABC reports that Canada decided to go ahead and grant refugee status, in a move that’s pretty embarrassing for Australia.
How Canada dealt with someone seeking asylum from Australia:
– didn't immediately detain him offshore as an asylum seeker
– accepted evidence his life was in danger
– granted him refugee status
– didn't indefinitely detain him offshore as a refugee— Gina Rushton (@ginarush) August 19, 2018
See, Stevan Utah had previously infiltrated outlaw bikie gang Bandidos as an informant for the Australian Crime Commission, until his cover was blown. After that, Utah faced threats on his life from gang members and had to flee the country. He felt that he couldn’t access the protection he needed in Australia, so he sought asylum in Canada.
Today, the ABC revealed the Canadian IRB’s findings on exactly how the Australian government failed Utah. For one, it found that an Australian government agency actually “outed the claimant as an informant” by mentioning in a 2006 media release that it had a source in the Bandidos. It also found that the Australian government was “either unwilling or unable to provide protection to him at that time”.
“I do find that the claimant would more likely than not face a serious risk to his life, almost immediately on his return to Australia,” was how the IRB judgment sighted by the ABC summed things up. Basically, they decided that the Australian government couldn’t actually protect Utah, so they’re taking over.
Utah himself told the ABC that he is “now not Australian”, and that “protection is questionable at best” here for people in his situation.