Opinion ID: 796479
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Past Persecution or Well-Founded Fear of Future Persecution

Text: 15 Petitioners seeking to establish past persecution must satisfy a heavy evidentiary burden. Indeed, our standard on review is difficult to meet without powerful and moving evidence. Dandan, 339 F.3d at 573-74. A survey of analogous cases demonstrates that the Bocis have not met this exacting standard because their evidence does not compel a finding of past persecution. 16 In Cecaj v. Gonzales, we vacated the removal order of an Albanian Democrat, noting numerous circumstances indicative of past persecution. 440 F.3d 897 (7th Cir.2006). In that case, the petitioner was detained for six days and beaten by masked police so badly that he required hospitalization. Id. at 898. Soon after, a member of the Socialist Party fired a gun near his head. Id. He received threatening phone calls regularly and suffered a second arrest and beating by the police during his campaign for public office, allegedly for not having proper identification papers. Id. Finally, his ten-year-old brother was kidnapped by persons who told the child that the crime was motivated by the petitioner's political activity. Id. 17 By contrast, in Hasanaj v. Ashcroft, we affirmed the BIA's denial of asylum where a gang of Socialists threatened an Albanian Democratic Party member at gunpoint and set his car on fire, but did not physically harm him. 385 F.3d 780, 782 (7th Cir.2004). We affirmed the BIA's conclusion that the petitioner's claims did not rise to the level of persecution, emphasizing that the petitioner was an average party member in a broad-based Democratic movement. Id. Moreover, we reasoned, the petitioner's encounter with the gang could be attributed to widespread lawlessness in the country at the time, rather than his being singled out for his political beliefs. Id. at 782-83. 18 Petitioners direct us to Asani v. INS, 154 F.3d 719, 722-23 (7th Cir.1998), in which we reversed the BIA's denial of asylum where the police detained the petitioner for two weeks, knocked out two of his teeth, and deprived him of food. 19 Unlike the petitioners in Cecaj and Asani, the Bocis have not demonstrated physical harm or abuse. As this Circuit recognized in Diallo v. Ashcroft, 381 F.3d 687, 698 (7th Cir.2004), short detentions or detentions without physical abuse seem to have been less apt to reach the `persecution' threshold required by this court. Vali was temporarily detained once and released without injury. Although someone killed his cousin, Vali had no way of knowing if the murder was politically motivated. Similarly, while Socialists and Communists historically harassed Vali's family because of their political involvement, Vali was not the subject of the harassment. 20 Likewise, even though Dhurata's family's home and warehouse were both burned down, she did not know who committed these crimes. As a result, she could only speculate that they were politically motivated rather than a result of widespread lawlessness at the time. Although Socialist Party members harassed Dhurata over a period of years, they never harmed her. Moreover, most of the Bocis' family members (the very ones who were allegedly victimized) remain in Albania. We therefore hold that the Bocis' evidence does not compel a finding of past persecution and accordingly affirm the BIA's finding. 21 Nor have the Bocis demonstrated a well-founded fear of future persecution. Even assuming that the Bocis have a subjectively genuine fear of future persecution, their fear is not objectively reasonable. See Sayaxing v. INS, 179 F.3d 515, 519-20 (7th Cir.1999). Although the Bocis need not establish certain persecution or even that persecution is highly probable should they return to Albania, they must show that it is a reasonable possibility. Gjerazi, 435 F.3d at 808 (citing INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 U.S. 421, 430-32, 107 S.Ct. 1207, 94 L.Ed.2d 434 (1987)). Given that the Bocis have not established past persecution and their families have remained in Albania without further incident, we decline to reverse the BIA's finding that the Bocis did not establish a well-founded fear of future persecution. 22