In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________

No. 05-1882

QUESTOR CECAJ and BLERTA CECAJ,

Petitioners,

v.

ALBERTO R. GONZALES,

Respondent.

____________

Petitions to Review Orders of the

Board of Immigration Appeals.

Nos. A95-207-964, A95-207-908.

____________

ARGUED FEBRUARY 15, 2006—DECIDED MARCH 15, 2006

____________

Before POSNER, ROVNER, and SYKES, Circuit Judges.

POSNER, Circuit Judge. Questor Cecaj, who together with

his wife is seeking asylum in the United States, was active

in the Democratic Party of Albania at a time when the

country was ruled by the Socialist Party. Persecution of

Democratic Party activists during this period has been

found in a number of cases. E.g., Gjerazi v. Gonzales, 435 F.3d

800 (7th Cir. 2006); Bace v. Ashcroft, 352 F.3d 1133 (7th Cir.

2003); Caushi v. Attorney General, 436 F.3d 220 (3d Cir. 2006);

Halo v. Gonzales, 419 F.3d 15, 17 (1st Cir. 2005). In 1998,

Cecaj—whom the immigration judge found wholly
2 No. 05-1882

credible—was arrested following a political protest in which

he had participated. He was detained for six days and

during that period was beaten by masked police

with rubber truncheons and also kicked, suffering injuries

that required his hospitalization. A few days after his

release from the hospital a member of the Socialist Party

accosted Cecaj on the street and fired a gun near his

head, an act that Cecaj sensibly interpreted as a threat.

He fled to Greece but returned in 2000 and resumed his

political activity with the New Democratic Party, which is

related to the Democratic Party, though the precise relationship is obscure. The following year, after an unsuccessful

run for mayor of his hometown, he stood for the Albanian

parliament on the New Democratic Party ticket in his

hometown, which was dominated by the Socialist Party.

Although he was a well-known local figure and candidate for public office, he was arrested during the campaign and beaten by the police, ostensibly for not having

identification papers on him. He also received threatening

phone calls, which he believed came from the police. The

last straw was the kidnapping of his 10-year-old brother by

unknown persons who told the child that he was being

kidnapped because of Cecaj’s political activity and that the

child “would end up dead” if Cecaj “didn’t do what they

say.” The child was released unharmed after a few hours

but Cecaj received a call in which “they said that [the

kidnapping] was the last warning.” Cecaj prudently abandoned his candidacy and left Albania with his wife.

The immigration judge ruled that Cecaj’s testimony did

not establish that he had been persecuted. The judge

said that the initial detention, despite the beatings and

kicking to which Cecaj was subjected during it, was merely

harassment that, “by itself, does not rise to the level of

persecution.” As for the gun incident, that was not perse-
No. 05-1882 3

cution either, the judge said, because Cecaj “failed to

establish [either] that the government was unable or

unwilling to control the socialist supporter” or “that the

socialist fired the gun close to him on account of his political

opinion.” The threatening phone calls didn’t count because

Cecaj “failed to identify what individual or group made the

phone calls . . . . He opined that the police made the threatening phone calls, however he also stated that the callers

never identified themselves.” The judge noted that Cecaj

had “submitted a police certificate stating that [his] father

reported an anonymous phone call . . . to the police. The

existence of the police certificates indicates that the government was able and willing to file a written report. As such,

[Cecaj] is unable to link the anonymous phone calls to the

government or to a group that the government is unable or

unwilling to control” (record reference omitted). As for the

kidnapping, Cecaj “failed to identify the perpetrators . . . .

The perpetrators of the kidnaping [sic] were unknown. As

such the incident does not constitute past persecution.” The

judge also discounted the second detention on the ground

that the reason the police beat Cecaj was that he was

not carrying identification papers; it is not persecution to

beat someone for such a reason.

The immigration judge’s analysis of the evidence was

radically deficient. He failed to consider the evidence as

a whole, as he was required to do by the elementary

principles of administrative law. Smith v. Apfel, 231 F.3d 433,

438 (7th Cir. 2000); Koval v. Gonzales, 418 F.3d 798, 806 (7th

Cir. 2005); Zhang v. Gonzales, 408 F.3d 1239, 1249 (9th Cir.

2005). Instead he broke it into fragments. Suppose you saw

someone holding a jar, and you said, “That’s a nice jar,” and

he smashed it to smithereens and said, “No, it’s not a jar.”

That is what the immigration judge did.
4 No. 05-1882

He said that the initial detention and beatings were not

persecution “by itself,” but merely harassment. That seems a

questionable characterization of protracted beatings and

kicking serious enough to require hospitalization. But that

is a side issue. The question the immigration judge should

have considered was not the significance of the episode in

itself but whether the entire sequence of experiences that

Cecaj underwent as a consequence of his political activity

made him a victim of persecution. That sequence included

two detentions with beatings, a gunshot intended to

intimidate, threatening phone calls, the kidnapping of a

child, and another threat.

The government’s lawyer conceded at argument that the

judge was wrong to say that Cecaj had not shown that the

“socialist” had fired the gun on account of Cecaj’s political

activities. The timing alone was pregnant: the incident

occurred shortly after Cecaj had been released from jail.

People do not go around shooting guns because they are

socialists or communists. But members of the Albanian

Socialist Party—a rough crowd, e.g., Gjerazi v. Gonzales,

supra, 435 F.3d at 802-04; Comollari v. Ashcroft, 378 F.3d 694,

696 (7th Cir. 2004); Bace v. Ashcroft, supra, 352 F.3d at 1136;

Caushi v. Attorney General, supra, 436 F.3d at 226-27; Latifi

v. Gonzales, 430 F.3d 103, 105 (2d Cir. 2005)—may well

have been shooting guns to intimidate (sometimes to

kill, Caushi v. Attorney General, supra, 436 F.3d at 226; Halo v.

Gonzales, supra, 419 F.3d at 18) their political opponents.

There was, it is true, no direct evidence that the “socialist”

was in cahoots with the government. But remember that

Cecaj had just been released from the hospital after being

beaten by the police; is it credible that the “socialist” was

courting arrest by his conduct? As for the mysterious

“police certificate,” described by the immigration judge as a
No. 05-1882 5

written report filed by the government, we are not told what

action if any was taken on it. For all that appears, Cecaj’s

father complained to the police about an anonymous phone

call and the police wrote down his complaint and gave him

a copy of it. There is no indication of any follow-up (likewise with the kidnapping, which was also reported to the

police). And the fact that Cecaj could not identify the callers

did not preclude his inferring that they were police. They

might have identified themselves as police without giving

their names or might have said things that revealed that

they were police.

The second detention was ostensibly for Cecaj’s failure

to have identification papers with him. But he was not

merely detained; he was beaten. Do Albanian police routinely beat people who fail to carry identification? Maybe so,

but taken together with the other evidence in the case the

beating was further evidence of persecution.

And finally the kidnapping. There is no evidence that

the kidnappers were police. But given the attitude of the

police as manifested by their previous conduct toward

Cecaj, he would have been reckless to ignore the threat

and trust the police to protect his brother and him.

Thus, the immigration judge’s finding that Cecaj was

not a victim of persecution on account of his political

activity is not supported by substantial evidence. Even

so, he is not entitled to asylum unless he has a well-founded

fear of being persecuted should he be returned to Albania.

Political conditions have changed in that country since he

left in 2001—the Democratic Party (not the New Democratic

Party, however) gained control of the government last year,

U.S. Dep’t of State, Bureau of European and Eurasian

Affairs, “Background Note: Albania” 3 (Sept. 2005),

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/ bgn/3235.htm. Maybe
6 No. 05-1882

Cecaj will be safe if he returns and resumes his political

career. But once past persecution is shown, the burden shifts

to the government to establish that the alien lacks a wellfounded fear of future persecution. 8 C.F.R. § 208.13(b)(1);

Sosnovskaia v. Gonzales, 421 F.3d 589, 593 (7th Cir. 2005). The

immigration judge did not find that the government had

carried that burden. What he said was that Cecaj had failed

to establish that he would be persecuted if he was sent back

to Albania. The judge placed the burden on the wrong

party.

The petitions for review are granted, the orders of removal vacated, and the case returned to the Board of

Immigration Appeals for further proceedings consistent

with this opinion.

A true Copy:

Teste:

 _____________________________

Clerk of the United States Court of 

Appeals for the Seventh Circuit 

USCA-02-C-0072—3-15-06