From news reports
The South Korean government and court Wednesday denied refugee status for a Pakistani couple who had sought asylum, citing death risks for marrying despite their different tribal backgrounds.
The Seoul High Court said the Seoul authorities’ denial of the couple’s request for refuge was legitimate as their issue did not involve matters of race, religion, ethnicity or political beliefs.
The couple, whose identity has remained withheld, filed for cancellation of the decision by the Seoul Immigration Office after they were denied protection.
According to reports, the two met in March 2006 and were married after two years and two months. Their marriage, however, reportedly was not permitted according to the tradition of their country as they came from two different tribes.
Both sides of their families began to threaten them, to a degree at which the couple were forced to go in hiding, the reports said.
One of the couple, who had been residing in Korea for job opportunities, eventually filed for refugee status in 2012, saying they could be murdered by their families if they returned home, and that the Pakistani government could not provide them any protection.
But the immigration office turned down the request the following year, saying there was not enough basis to deem that the couple was suffering from fear on grounds that they could be subject to persecution based on the refugee convention, and that their problem involved family objections.
The 1951 Refugee Convention states that a refugee is someone who, “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable to, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country.”
The court also sided with immigration, saying that the couple’s case did not fulfill the refugee conditions and the Pakistani system had due process against crimes.