good morning everyone please be seated welcome to the ninth circuit and we are delighted to be with you here this morning and we will think we have a total of five is the petitioner a company that you attend calls house church meetings and on december twenty fourth two thousand and three that the government went over to come talk to another raid and he managed to run away why would they why were they raiding the house churches because just because it's because they're not registered now your client can go to church he's a bad guys lutheran so he's a protestant and the protestant faith is one of the five recognized churches by by this china and he can go there and attend openly so far as the record shows but he chose to go to a house church which is in violation of the chinese because it's not registered the people don't register them so they they violate that's a violation of the law now he is how does he how is he prevented from exercise using his religion as a lutheran when lutheran is a protestant church and the protestant church is recognized and he can go there to worship that he chooses to go to a house not saying it isn't and there's a better idea i don't know but i think it's in the end let anybody worship wherever they want to worship but in that country a protestant has to go to a protestant church to worship but he can worship he can worship or in a protestant church so we are is it your position that even though he can worship in his protestant faith open and freely he has a right to worship it and house  but five times or to cater for their religious belief i read the word by word over and over again i did not find any reference are relevant for with respect to whether he has a well founded fear future persecution or not relevant with respect to whether he suffered past persecution rather well it's not don't want to go to the court of sit in a past i e just sympathy you can or what happened to the parents i think that's that's what i guess i was getting stuck on i don't think that's right if anything the record we have before us suggests that nothing happened to the parents they're still there they presumably continue to worship right that i know the mother might not be a preacher anymore but they continue to worship and apparently from the record we have nothing has happened to them you mean nothing has happened to me after yeah after i can remember your client left china what was it in two thousand and three three ok so let's say that a bunch of bad things happened two thousand and one to two thousand and three but from two thousand and three to two thousand and nine nothing happened basically whatever past persecution  current government has sort of thrown in the towel and it is no longer doing any bad things that undercuts completely the petitioners claim that there is a well founded fear future persecution right yes but then in that case  substantial evidence does not compel the court to find that different decision is compelled the court's precedent supports the finding of no past persecution  the petitioner encountered an isolated encounter and in his statement in testimony acknowledge that the police had him report because it was an illegal gathering and he was he was not precluded from practicing his religion well how do you respond to counsel's point let's focus on past persecution here that  take into account the pattern of arrests and detention that the government perpetrated against his parents as the judge mentioned earlier the record that the court has has information about arrests affecting the mother and with the father but they weren't developed it wasn't a development of facts to show that they were because of a religion or was it as he mr t talks about because of an illegal gathering so when one looks that he was in a in an unregistered church and required as he said he was required to report because of the illegal gathering we don't have the ability to look at what happened to the mother and father back then so there's no evidence that compels they still practice their religion and in the house church the sister is there and has had no difficulties with her practice of religion there was other evidence looked at and in the entire record we look that the petitioner's mother retired from preaching at one point because she had an illness had a brain tumor and appears that she received treatment and is not preaching and it may be because of of that but that wasn't developed at the hearings so the record here does not compel the court to conclude otherwise  reporting because of his illegal gathering and that he was able to to practice his religion he just could not go or just did not go to the unregistered house church and thus the evidence is not so overwhelming  treatment that would require the court to be compelled to conclude that mr g suffered past person is the only thing that he alleged as far as past difficulties the twenty four hours he is in jail without food yes roy he was twenty four less than twenty four hours there was no injury he had to report and if your position is that is insufficient i suppose under on december twenty fourth yeah i don't think you can dispute the religious connection there because i think it was a raid right on the house church but what about the prior arrests the prioress if we look