A man granted asylum in Ireland after fleeing from the Taliban, who feared he would be sent back to Afghanistan when his landlord texted him about having his “papers” checked during a tenancy dispute, has won €10,000 for what a tribunal has described as “blatant racism”.
Landlord Aidan Corless apologised for the message and told the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) it was “sent in frustration” and he was “not proud of it”. The tribunal heard evidence that he did not know the tenant had a family of six staying in the two-bedroom property.
The WRC has directed Mr Corless to pay €10,000 in compensation to Irfanullah Refah under the Equal Status Act 2000.
In submissions to the tribunal, Mr Refah’s representative, Stewart Reddin of the Dublin South Citizens Information Service, said his client had been an operations manager for a non-governmental organisation carrying out rural development work in southern Afghanistan, including encouraging young girls to attend school.
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Mr Refah’s job involved him liaising with US military forces, meaning he had to flee when the Taliban went on the offensive in 2017, Mr Reddin said. He arrived in Ireland in 2017, was granted asylum the following year and was later given leave by the minister for justice to bring his family to join him in Ireland.
The tribunal heard the landlord and tenant fell into dispute a little over a year into Mr Refah’s tenancy, when Mr Refah sent texts in July of last year complaining that heaters in the house were broken, windows and doors needed to be fixed and a bathroom ceiling had collapsed.
In a replying text, sent on July 24th, the landlord accused Mr Refah of living in the property “illegally” and told him: “You need to be sent out of this country instead of trying to claim from the government. We need to check what papers you used to gain entry here.”
The tribunal heard Mr Refah’s case was that he was “terrified that this could result in him being reported to the authorities and potentially being deported and returned to Afghanistan where he faced a real threat to his life”.
In evidence, Mr Corless said he believed Mr Refah had been “illegally in the apartment for two years” and he would “never have rented a two-bed apartment to a family of six”.
The tribunal heard Mr Refah had initially paid rent for the apartment in cash to an acquaintance of his, Qamar Ali. Although Mr Reddin submitted that his client had received a tenancy agreement on February 27th, 2022, with his and Mr Ali’s names on it, Mr Corless claimed Mr Ali was the only tenant.
In evidence, Mr Ali said Mr Corless did not know Mr Refah had a family of six staying in the property, and was “annoyed” when he found out. He confirmed he “did not tell the respondent about the complainant’s family” and felt he had let Mr Corless down.
When Mr Refah served the landlord with Equal Status Act notification papers last September, Mr Corless stated again that the complainant was in “illegal occupation” of the apartment, Mr Reddin submitted. “Based on this assertion, the respondent opined that the complainant may also be residing in Ireland with his family ‘illegally’,” he said.
Mr Reddin submitted a Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) determination, dating from May this year in respect of the apartment on Bridgefoot Street in Dublin 8, which concluded that Mr Corless had given “no independent corroboration of his view that [Mr Refah] had no legal interest in the tenancy”, adding that Mr Refah had “met the respondent landlord’s agreed terms, commenced occupation, and pays rent”.
Under cross-examination by Mr Reddin, the landlord said he knew the message “would not be nicely received” but it was “not meant as discriminatory”. He told the tribunal he “would have said something else to an Irish person” in the circumstances.
Upholding Mr Refah’s complaint, WRC adjudicator Marie Flynn said the text message sent by Mr Corless was a “clear reference to the complainant’s immigrant status” which reflected a “negative view of immigrants as coming to Ireland without the necessary permission in order to access benefits”.
“It appears that the respondent is attempting to use the imbalance between his position as someone who is familiar with Irish societal norms, and that of the complainant, who is an immigrant from a very different background, in an attempt to upset, frighten and intimidate the complainant,” she wrote.
“Neither the respondent’s contrition as expressed at the adjudication hearing nor his sense of frustration in any way lessen the detrimental impact of his WhatsApp message to the complainant due to the blatant racism expressed therein.”
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