TNAG-1797-FCO40-2557-Hong-Kong-Vietnamese-refugees-repatriation--including-Opera-1988 — Page 25

means of nowledge thorities.

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is measures in different .g. general iations, the

various elements involved may, if taken together, produce an effect on the mind of the applicant that can reasonably justify a claim to well-founded fear of persecution on "cumulative grounds". Needless to say, it is not possible to lay down a general rule as to what cumulative reasons can give rise to a valid claim to refugee status. This will necessarily depend on all the circumstances, including the particular geographical, historical and ethnological context.

(c) Discrimination

54. Differences in the treatment of various groups do indeed exist to a greater or lesser extent in many societies. Persons who receive less favourable treatment as a result of such differences are not necessarily victims of persecution. It is only in certain circumstances that discrimination will amount to persecution. This would be so if measures of discrimination lead to consequences of a substantially prejudicial nature for the person con- cerned, e.g. serious restrictions on his right to earn his livelihood, his right to practise his religion, or his access to normally available educational facilities.

55. Where measures of discrimination are, in themselves, not of a serious character, they may nevertheless give rise to a reasonable fear of per- secution if they produce, in the mind of the person concerned, a feeling of apprehension and insecurity as regards his future existence. Whether or not such measures of discrimination in themselves amount to persecution must be determined in the light of all the circumstances. A claim to fear of per- secution will of course be stronger where a person has been the victim of a number of discriminatory measures of this type and where there is thus a cumulative element involved.'

(d) Punishment

56. Persecution must be distinguished from punishment for a common law offence. Persons fleeing from prosecution or punishment for such an offence are not normally refugees. It should be recalled that a refugee is a victim-or potential victim-of injustice, not a fugitive from justice. 57. The above distinction may, however, occasionally be obscured. In the first place, a person guilty of a common law offence may be liable to ex- cessive punishment, which may amount to persecution within the meaning of the definition. Moreover, penal prosecution for a reason mentioned in the definition (for example, in respect of "illegal" religious instruction given to a child) may in itself amount to persecution.

58. Secondly, there may be cases in which a person, besides fearing pros- ecution or punishment for a common law crime, may also have “well- founded fear of persecution". In such cases the person concerned is a refugee. It may, however, be necessary to consider whether the crime in

• See also paragraph 53.

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