A review of psycho-legal issues in credibility assessments of asylum claims based on religion

Figures & data

Figure 1. Overview of search strategy.

Table 1. Main findings regarding credibility assessment of asylum claims based on religion.

Reference	Religious group and/or geographical scope	Methods	Main findings and conclusions
Samahon (2000)	Christian converts in the United States	Case analysis	Assessments of asylum claims based on religious conversion can be improved by refraining from expecting asylum-seekers to conform with strict versions of religion, refraining from judging asylum-seekers’ past behaviour and acknowledging that conversions can happen in times of crisis or adversity (e.g. after displacement).
Gunn (2002)	Not specified	Legal and theoretical analysis	The author identifies three shortcomings of credibility assessments: (a) decisions based on officials’ personal understandings of religion; (b) ranking religions and dismissing unfamiliar ones as cults/sects; and (c) focusing excessively on applicants’ inner beliefs and disregarding the objective reasons why persecutors might harm them.
Musalo (2004)	Not specified	Case analysis	Officials often rely excessively on knowledge tests and evaluate whether applicants’ actions match their declared beliefs. Post-departure conversions enhance suspicion regarding an applicant's genuineness.
Good (2009)	United States and United Kingdom	Case analysis	In both countries, officials rely on stereotypes about the nature of religion when adjudicating asylum claims.
Kagan (2010)	Eritrean Pentecostals in Egypt	Analysis of 40 transcripts of asylum interviews	In line with good practice, interviewers asked more narrative questions than abstract questions about faith. They also asked more questions about concrete actions or events than about personal religious knowledge, practice or belief. However, 61% of interviewers’ questions were closed (i.e. not recommended) rather than open-ended (i.e. recommended) questions.
Dolance (2013)	Non-believers in the United States	Case analysis	The difficulty to prove persecution based on absence of belief creates evidentiary burdens on non-believers, who may resort to converting to another religion to increase their chances of obtaining asylum.
A. H. Anderson (2013)	Eritrean Pentecostals in the United Kingdom	Interviews with 12 rejected asylum-seekers and analysis of casefiles. Based on the author's expertise in African Pentecostalism.	Assessments of Eritrean Pentecostals’ claims overlook the differences between Eritrean and European versions of Pentecostalism. Assessments are based on unsatisfactory interviewing methods (e.g. knowledge tests).
Berlit et al. (2015)	Converts in 13 European Union countries	Opinion of 40 judges regarding their countries’ asylum practices	Judges in Europe consider several aspects to establish the credibility of conversion: sincerity, timing of disclosure, external conversion processes, religious knowledge, role of the religion in applicants’ lives, religious attendance and possible opportunistic motivations.
Meral & Gray (2016)	United Kingdom	Analysis of evidence submitted by immigration lawyers & support organizations	Officials’ lack of understanding of religion results in improper questioning and assessments. Officials falsely equate religious knowledge with sincerity of belief.
McDonald (2016)	Converts in Australia	Analysis of responses by courts of appeal	Religious claims are often rejected because applicants do not meet officials’ expectations of strictly following their religion. Rejections are justified by vagueness and implausibility of the claims.
Nagy & Speelman (2017)	Christian converts in the European Union	Interviews with stakeholders	Asylum officials’ expectation that converts will describe a precise narrative of conversion, from one fixed religious community to another, leaves little room for doubt, hesitation or exploration.
Madziva & Lowndes (2018)	Pakistani Christians in the United Kingdom	Interviews and focus groups with 5 refugees, 10 asylum-seekers & 25 members of support organizations	When evaluating evidence in cases based on religion, officials seek evidence that confirms their prior beliefs about asylum-seekers’ credibility. Officials give more weight to evidence they identify themselves (e.g. country-of-origin information) than to evidence submitted by asylum-seekers.
Millbank & Vogl (2018)	Persons fearing witchcraft and originating from Nigeria, Tanzania, Indonesia, Cameroon, Ghana and Fiji applying for protection in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States and New Zealand	Analysis of 110 case decisions	Asylum officials often dismiss witchcraft-related asylum claims because they consider applicants’ beliefs as implausible or irrational.
Nixon (2018)	Non-religious asylum-seekers in the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada	Analysis of 8 cases	Officials make unsupported assumptions about the similarities between religious communities and communities of non-believers, and expect applicants to give logical reasons for their lack of belief.
Šorytė (2018)	Chinese members of the Church of the Almighty God in Europe and South Korea	Not specified	Unknown religions are often labelled as cults, and their members have more trouble establishing the credibility of their claims than members of mainstream religions.
Aarsheim (2019)	Converts in Norway and Canada	Analysis of 70 cases	Post-departure conversions are the most challenging cases to asses in both Norway and Canada. In Canada, officials evaluate how sincere applicants’ conversion appears to be. In Norway, officials also expect asylum-seekers to explain the rationale behind their religious change.
Calvani (2019)	Chinese members of the Church of the Almighty God in Italy	Not specified	Members of the Church of the Almighty God face evidentiary barriers in establishing that (a) they belong to the religion; (b) the documents they present to corroborate their membership are authentic; (c) the group is actually persecuted in China.
Hartikainen (2019)	Christian converts in Finland	Analysis of 114 articles in religious media on the role of religious expertise in conversion-based asylum claims	In recent years, Evangelical Church leaders’ efforts at assisting the Finnish Immigration Service to conduct more valid assessments of converts’ claims by commenting on individual converts’ motivations for religious change have been met with resistance.
Møller (2019)	Denmark	Author's reflections based on his own experience as an asylum official	There are three options to establish credibility of religious conversion: (a) look for concrete evidence of religious change (e.g. a baptism), irrespective of beliefs; (b) assess religious knowledge; (c) adopt a narrative approach to interviewing that allows the applicant to describe the important elements of their faith. Denmark has tended towards favouring the third approach.
Madziva (2020)	United Kingdom	Ethnographic research with asylum-seekers	Officials expect high levels of coherence and consistency in asylum-seekers' claims. They base their decisions on assumptions about religion that may not reflect applicants’ lived experiences.
Bianchini (2022)	Asylum-seekers with witchcraft-related claims in the United Kingdom	Review of scientific literature and policy documents, analysis of legal provisions and policies relevant to witchcraft persecution and asylum decisions	Expert witnesses with specialized knowledge of non-Western religions can prevent asylum officials from conducting inaccurate credibility assessments driven by ethnocentric assumptions.

Table 2. Arguments against using knowledge tests to assess the credibility of religion.

References	Arguments
Preparing knowledge tests
Meral & Gray (2016); Madziva & Lowndes (2018)	Questions reflect officials’ often inaccurate assumptions about what an asylum-seeker should be expected to know
A. H. Anderson (2013)	Accurate information about the applicant’s religion may be difficult to obtain, leading to tests based on false, incomplete or unreliable information
McDonald (2016)	Questions fail to account for individual variations in asylum-seekers’ lived experiences
Musalo (2004)	Questions are often not adapted to applicants’ profiles (e.g. age, gender and access to information)
Musalo (2004)	Questions may not be relevant in the cross-cultural context
Gunn (2002); Musalo (2004)	Tests may not be relevant to applicants who focus more on the communal aspects of their religion than on knowledge
Nagy & Speelman (2017)	Knowledge may be acquired late in the process of converting to a religion
A. H. Anderson (2013)	Belonging to a banned or persecuted religion can prevent applicants from acquiring knowledge
Madziva & Lowndes (2018)	Officials expect asylum-seekers to display expert knowledge of their religion
Administering knowledge tests
Kagan (2010)	Knowledge tests can lead the interview to take on an accusatory tone and damage rapport-building
A. H. Anderson (2013); Madziva (2020); McDonald (2016)	Interpreters without religious expertise may translate statements inaccurately
Evaluating applicants’ statements
Kagan (2010); Musalo (2004)	Religious knowledge does not always correlate to actual belief
McDonald (2016)	Applicants’ statements are often assessed inconsistently (i.e. incorrect answers lead to disbelief, while correct answers lead to conclusions that the claim is rehearsed)
Samahon (2000)	Applicants’ statements do not allow officials to diagnostically distinguish between true and fabricated claims
Šorytė (2018)	Asylum-seekers’ statements are assessed against information from unreliable sources (e.g. documents drafted by the religion’s adversaries)
Madziva (2020)	Minor discrepancies are used to discredit claims based on religion

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