three basic issues here which we need to address the first two or rather brief third when requires a little more explanation the very first is that  k court initial eight found that mr lee's harms did not rise to the level of persecution and now the controlling law on this would be well the ashcroft  which case a chinese citizen was arrested detained twice physically abused and forced to renounce his religion in this particular case we also have a  rast detainment for seven days two very brutal beatings he was forced to renounce a political right to that of protest he lost his freedom he had to accept supervision and he lost his job as a result of this now in this particular case we have in his first interrogation twenty proximately twenty hits on the back with a police baton he was dragged to the floor he was kicked seven or eight times by one of the policeman and he was punched approximately twelve times this was repeated two days later when the bruises were still fresh when he received approximately another twenty belts or hits with a baton he was w belt approximately seven to eight times and he received additional kicks and punches by the police he was ultimately forced to sign a confession as in and he was forced to pay a five thousand r and b fine in the record it states that he was making about a thousand r and b a month so this would be about a two week fine which is definitely significant  he lost his employment he was barred from future employment by the virtue of the fact that this was considered a crime and no government owned corporation distinguishing this case from they had in that this is not a disadvantage a mere disadvantage or a trivial inconvenience this man suffered two very severe  government corruption and they after a series of petitions to the local government they were completely ignored now  this was it actually took place outside a public facility but the court initially stated that because of this disruption in the fact that he didn't have a permit to conduct this protest that it was in fact a criminal matter given the fact that there were over two hundred people that were facing  severe hunger and other hardships as a result of this government corruption that you were trying to peaceably and it was always peaceably seek redress and they were beaten up for at and what evidence do we have as to that regardless of what the b i said that it was to instill public order what is the evidence in the record that you're relying on that shows it was f r and another at it was on account of his political views for example well he when he was being beaten he was told that either he would confess or he would die respondent testified that he was accused of anti government activities right because he was exposing government corruption so they accused him of anti government activit they'd when he'd never had a chance to sign the confession that he was forced to sign it could have said anything but what the government i'm sorry what the court focused on was his  gravity which i'm sure the courts familiar with but certainly in gravel we have political corruption by the government we have direct punishment in retribution for exposing the corruption and we have severe physical abuse and this it's on all fours evidence despite the fact that he was found credible note it also states in the record that he testified that the terms of his release from jail after he paid the fine was that he could have no contact with his former workers he could not file any more petitions he had to accept local surveillance and he had to report  weekly to the police department now he did not come to this country with the trove of documents to support his case family still on observation still that evidence its would put his family in danger it would put his coworkers in danger the the internet the mails all of that he can't trust it there and lives that matter and he doesn't want to bring any trouble or worse onto his family and his associates back there this is one of the problems that we have of course in asylum law is that oftentimes the documents are very difficult to come by and particularly from china and that's that's where most of my clients morning good morning may it please the court my name is laurie warwick and i am here on behalf of united states attorney general the court should deny the petition for review because contrary to petitioners assertions nothing in the record compels a contrary conclusion and that which was reached by the agency before proceeding to my affirmative defense of this case i would like to clarify certain points that petitioner has raised first of all there was never a corroboration finding entered into this case there's no and that regardless any fear of future harm might be subjectively genuine but would not be objectively reasonable and there is another very important point critical before we proceed with anything else there's absolutely nothing in the record that says the company that the petitioner worked for was owned by the government he repeatedly referred to it as a company as a business the boss was the president there was the board of directors the chairman of the board the registry in the dock at the household registry in the record shows that the company was the textile factory company limited suggesting a typical corporate structure but most importantly when he was  h s counsel do you have proof of who owns your company he said quote i don't know we have a board of directors and there was a chairman of the board of directors as far as ownership i don't know and again he was the chief of operations he attended many of the dinners or at least some of the dinners that the lavish dinners that he said that the chairman of the board was misappropriation of funds to provide if the company was owned by the government he would know it he never asserted that company be government on couldn't just say a general statement about being against corruption with regard to private companies a political opinion well respectfully your honor i would the reason it's important is because it indicates at what point the government is involved in this case when they become interjected in the case and sure an opinion about corruption may be a true opinion but unless it involves government corruption or the way the government deals with private corruption it would not necessarily amount to a political political opinion or one imputed to him and i don't believe that this record suggests that that that would be that's not his theory of the case ok thank you thank you in fact is clear that the government only became involved in this when he filed a petition for redress after he was laid off from his employment he was laid off as part of the second of two large groups because of this misappropriation or embezzlement perhaps by this company chairman and he filed a petition with the labor bureau in the district which i assume is something  police officers not anyone in the labor bureau but the labor bureau he goes he's filed the petition that does bring in the government into his case however it does i don't believe that there's any evidence in the record that the petition was ignored it simply hadn't been adjudicated yet he he testified that he felt that it was ignored but when he went to the he organized a group of about one hundred protesters to go down to the labor bureau to demand a more prompt resolution of his petition he said i was going down to the government right this yes he goes into the government building he says they are at that point he says they all were in hundred people and that the lawyers were so surprised they stopped working they said oh ok we understand give us some time give us a few weeks and we will we will adjudicate your or address your petition unfortunately they didn't do that in a few weeks it took a few months at least until the point that they became frustrated to get in again and he organized a group of people twice that size to again go to the government building much like this one to go to a government building to approach to protest and i don't understand i don't see anywhere in the record where it says that the majority of the people remained quietly outside that is in the petitioners pleadings but it's not his testimony or his statement the only thing he said was that twenty of those people demanded to speak to the district the leader of the district government that would be the one responsible for resolving his petition their petition at that point they were turned away police were arrived they were arrested three of the leaders were arrested and that was when he was detained and he was subject to abuse he was detained for approximately one week he suffered two he was interrogated briefly only twenty minutes each time on each of two days and he suffered severe he did some suffer significant abuse he was he was hit he was punched he was kicked both times however he was released about after a week and although he could not obtain employment after that he said it's he was not barred from future employment and that was never you never asserted that the police officers said you can't work for anyone around here again instead he actually testified that  that he will see he could not find other employment because people were just afraid to employ him it wasn't that they were told not to they were afraid to they're afraid to employ him regardless of the salary demands that he made a very still manage just you know there's no testimony in the record that he was rendered homeless that he was required to go on public assistance anything that would in my mind equate to the poverty that he suggested he suffered instead he was able to find i believe he went through odd sort of odd jobs to collect a trash anything to support his family with you know all due credit to him that he was able to do that but the question here again is whether that harm rose the level persecution and of course that falls somewhere on the spectrum between goo and quot but i believe it's far more akin to goo than to go and there's a lot of unpublished case law regarding the level of harm not rising to the level of persecution but those cases don't actually describe the harm that the court found to be not compelling so it's hard for me to address that but it's sort of an ugly to determine whether someone's harm is severe enough to to suffer to rise to the level persecution but these are fact intensive cases and that is the job of the agency to engage in that task to look at the facts compare it to the case law and determine whether the harm was so severe did you mention you in passing just now yes i did ok i didn't find in your brief well you don't have to search now and call here oh i'm sorry i did guess who is on several several pages and nine fourteen fifteen but i don't believe i don't know if it was an opening brief by petitioner but and also which is the one that the court determined that the harm was so severe that it compelled the conclusion and i counsel i thought i thought that just because i was talking about a case called you i the case where there was the question of whether the arrest was a pretext for the harm where maybe that maybe the rest are superficially appear to be legitimate but it was just a pretext  for some sort of abuse that would have a nexus but the court found that that did not compel the conclusion that the actions were on account of a protected ground if i recall correctly and in that case importantly it was very clear that mr who worked for a mid sized nationally owned company where as i said complaints about the corruption at that company would certainly implicate the government and their response to corruption that's not present in this case there were similar facts there was otherwise about the layoffs due to misappropriation there were protests detained and in that case although the court did not address the harm level  was not given food or water use placed in a cell with six others and he was detained for ten days again those are sort of facts that mitigate towards a more severe punishment he was beaten as as well