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2007 Winners - News (2nd place)
Iranians increasingly denied study visas
By Jesse Ferreras
Ubyssey, October 2nd, 2006, (University of British Columbia)
The denial of study visas to prospective students from Iran by the Canadian Consulate in Tehran has caught the attention of university presidents across the country.
In a letter dated September 13, 2006, UBC President Stephen Toope wrote to Citizenship and Immigration Minister Monte Solberg that UBC is "concerned" about "an apparent increase in visa refusals for UBC's current and prospective students from Iran." The letter states that the central reason that is being given to prospective students is that they have "limited ties to Iran."
Hamid Azizi, a Ph.D candidate in the department of material engineering, has been circulating a petition nationwide that was sent to President Toope before the letter to Minister Solberg. He claims that his wife has been twice denied by the Canadian Embassy and given the same reason.
"It's a golden cage," he said. "[The] first time I applied, I went to International House, they told me this is your problem because you didn't bring all this required information to them... I agreed with them, this is my problem. [My wife's] accounts, money, I prepared all of them.
"She was a student, she prepared [a] round trip ticket, I prepared [a] bank account, for [a] two month [visitor visa] I applied. ...they said that we are not satisfied that she will be back after two months, and they rejected her."
The application for a study permit issued by Citizenship and Immigration Canada asks the applicant to specify where they will be studying, their program, as well as the cost of studies. Further to that information, the applicant must specify whether they have ever committed a criminal offence; been refused admission or ordered to leave Canada; applied for any Canadian Immigration visas; been refused a visa before; and whether the applicant has ever committed a war crime or crime against humanity.
Azizi and friend Hamed Mohsenian, a PhD candidate in the Department of Computer and Electrical Engineering, confirmed that they had filled out the application as found on the CIC website. Mohsenian claims that his wife was denied a study visa when she applied in June, and was given the same reason for her rejection.
"It's not a specific reason," he said. "The sentence is very interesting, they say, we are not satisfied that you are going to come back. You know, who can satisfy them? This is something personal. [They] can just sit and say, 'I'm not satisfied.' [They] can't provide any evidence."
Azizi, meanwhile, has been organizing his petition in conjunction with students at various institutions across Canada, including the Universities of Toronto, Waterloo and Ontario. Citing a list of approximately 30 students updated to July 2006 whose spouses have been denied study visas for what he claims were "limited ties," he explained that the petition has gathered 550 signatures nationwide, 213 of them from graduate students at UBC.
"The number is not important," he said. "I can go office by office to get more than a thousand signatures, but we just started these things. But if I need to go further on this, I will do that.
A report provided to //ital2//the Ubyssey by the CIC office in Ottawa on study visa applications from Iran shows a decline of 50% in the approval rate for applications since 2004. In addition to this figure, only 153 permits have thus far been issued in 2006 out of 872 received applications, while in 2003, 835 were issued out of a total 1,113. Between 2004 and 2005, the year that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected as President of Iran, the number of refused applications more than doubled from 383 in 2004 to over 900 in 2005. In the same year, the number of applications received increased by over 70 per cent.
Melanie Carkner, a CIC media relations representative, explained that there are numerous reasons why applicants are denied visas.
"The safety and health of Canadians is number one," she said. "They may not have sufficient ties to their country, such as jobs, family, home... there could be several reasons. Criminality would be another one."
Carkner further explained by e-mail that the Visa Office reviews applications to determine whether it has been filled out correctly and contains all necessary documents. After this review, she explained, an Officer decides whether it is necessary to conduct an interview. An application may be refused for the following reasons: lack of proof of financial sufficiency; failure of the medical examination; lack of satisfaction by the Visa Officer that the applicant's primary intention is to study in Canada; lack of satisfaction by the Visa Officer that the applicant will leave Canada at the end of the study period.
Carkner declined to elaborate on behalf of CIC about how "limited ties to Iran" are determined.
"We're not prepared to discuss our security checks, or how our checks are done," she said. "That would compromise the process of our system. At the end of the day, the discretion is left in the hands of the Visa Officer. ...they make the final decision and we stand by their decision."
