Opinion ID: 78195
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Refusal to Serve in the Eritrean Military Results in Disproportionately Severe Punishment

Text: Substantial objective evidence in the record supports that [r]efusal to serve in the [Eritrean] military results not in normal draft evasion penalties, but rather in disproportionately severe punishment. Mekhoukh, 358 F.3d at 126. First, torture is used as standard military punishment. The methods of torture are heinous. One of the various methods used is the helicopter: [The victim is] tied with a rope by hands and feet behind the back, lying on the ground face down, outside in the hot sun, rain or freezing cold nights, stripped of upper garments. This is a punishment allocated for a particular number of days, the maximum reported being 55 days ... but is more often one or two weeks. The prisoner is tied in this position 24 hours a day, except for two or three short breaks for meals and toilet functions. Another is the Jesus Christ: [The victim is] stripped to the waist, wrists tied, and standing on a block with hands tied to a tree branch; the block is removed, leaving the victim suspended with the feet just off the ground in a crucifix-like posture. Beatings are inflicted on the bare back. This is said to be an extremely severe torture, restricted to only 10 to 15 minutes to avoid serious lasting injury. Another is known as the number eight: [I]nside a special torture room, the victim is tied by wrists behind the back and with the feet bound; a stick is placed under the knees and supported on a framework on both sides horizontally, and the body is turned upside down with the feet exposed. The soles of the feet are beaten with sticks or whipped. Those who attempt to evade military service, or who are even suspected of evading, may be detained and tortured. According to Amnesty International, [t]he penalty for evading conscription or protesting against military service is three years' imprisonment, but in practice those caught are tortured and arbitrarily detained for several months with hard labor, before being forced back into the army. For example, in November 2004, Eritrean security forces indiscriminately arrested thousands of people suspected of evading military conscription. People were arrested at places of work, in the street, at roadblocks and at home. Prisoners were taken to [an] ... army prison .... That night, ... [s]oldiers opened fire and shot dead at least a dozen prisoners and wounded many more. Further, [m]any prisoners [are] kept in overcrowded metal shipping containers in unventilated, hot and unhygienic conditions and denied adequate food and medical treatment. Conditions in military prisons around the country [are] extremely harsh. The Country Report found that some who attempted to evade have been killed. The great likelihood that [Mohammed] will be punished for refusal to serve is beyond dispute. See Mojsilovic, 156 F.3d at 747 (quotation and citation omitted). Accordingly, I conclude that Mohammed has established a well-founded fear of persecution based on forced service in a military condemned by the international community and that refusal to serve in the military results in disproportionately severe punishment. See Mekhoukh, 358 F.3d at 126. Mohammed is therefore entitled to asylum. The majority finds that the evidence of human rights violations in Eritrea does not compel a finding that Mohammed has a well-founded fear of future persecution because he must present evidence that he will be singled out for persecution. This reasoning neglects to appreciate the complex relationship between group targeting and individual targeting. Kotasz v. INS, 31 F.3d 847, 854 (9th Cir.1994). The Ninth Circuit has cautioned against use of the phrase singled out for this very reasonit is not surprising that the BIA's reliance on phrases such as `singling out' occasionally results in error. While such phrases may be useful to denote the existence of a particularized threat of persecution is some circumstances, they are ill-suited to many others. Id. The majority claims that the law provides that Mohammed bore the burden of proving his fear of future persecution. I disagree. First, there are situations in which members of an entire group ... are systematically persecuted. In such cases, group membership itself subjects the alien to a reasonable possibility of persecution, so that he can satisfy the well-founded fear standard simply by proving membership in the targeted group. Id. at 852 (emphasis in original). When there is such a pattern or practice in the subject country of persecuting members of a statutorily defined group of which the alien is a part, 8 C.F.R. § 208.13(b)(2), the INS recognizes group persecution as sufficient in itself to establish eligibility for asylum in certain circumstances, Kotasz, 31 F.3d at 852. Second, in non-pattern or practice cases, while members of the disfavored groups are not threatened by systematic persecution of the group's entire membership, the fact of group membership nonetheless places them at some risk. Id. at 853. In these cases there is a significant correlation between the asylum petitioner's showing of group persecution and the rest of the evidentiary showing necessary to establish a particularized threat of persecution. Id. In other words, the more egregious the showing of group persecutionthe greater the risk to all members of the groupthe less evidence of individualized persecution must be adduced. Id. The majority's blanket statement that an alien must present evidence that he will be singled out for persecution, fails to engage in this weighing that the complex relationship between group and individual targeting requires. Mohammed's showing of the government's human rights record and serious abuses committed against draft-eligible Eritreans is egregious enough that a more particularized threat of persecution against him was not necessary.