Tchemkou v. Gonzales
| Decision Date | 31 July 2007 |
| Docket Number | No. 06-2638.,06-2638. |
| Parties | Mireille TCHEMKOU, Petitioner, v. Alberto R. GONZALES, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
Brian J. Murray (argued), Jones Day, Chicago, IL, for Petitioner.
Karen Lundgren, Department of Homeland Security, Office of the Chief Counsel, Chicago, IL, Mary J. Candaux, Thomas B. Fatouros (argued), Department of Justice, Civil Division, Immigration Litigation, Washington, DC, for Respondent.
Before RIPPLE, ROVNER and SYKES, Circuit Judges.
Mireille Tchemkou, a native and citizen of Cameroon, arrived in the United States on a visitor's visa and timely applied for asylum. An Immigration Judge ("IJ") denied her request, and the Board of Immigration Appeals ("BIA") affirmed that denial. Ms. Tchemkou timely petitioned for review in this court. We now grant the petition.
Ms. Tchemkou is a native of Cameroon and a member of the ethnic minority Bamileke tribe. Her troubles with the Cameroonian government began in 1993 during her senior year in high school. At that time, she was involved in the United Nations Education, Science and Culture Organization ("UNESCO") at Mbanga High School. In April and May of 1993, the teachers at Mbanga High School went on strike because they, unlike teachers in non-Bamileke regions, had not been paid for several months. Because of the teachers' absence, the Mbanga students were not able to prepare for a national examination required for admittance to Cameroon's universities. Ms. Tchemkou helped organize a protest to end the strike; specifically, the students, together with parents and teachers, planned to march from the high school to the regional leader's office.
On the day of the march, the police intercepted the students. Their presence frightened away most of the students with the exception of the six UNESCO board members. The police confronted Ms. Tchemkou and, according to Ms. Tchemkou's testimony, stated:
Do you think that you can change the government, do you think that these activities that you are, these activities that you have will end up somewhere? You should just shut up if you want to lead a quiet life in this country. We do not want people like you creating chaos and giving us so much work. If you want to stay alive you must keep away from these kind of activities which you have now started.
A.R.99. The police then began beating Ms. Tchemkou and the other students with batons; Ms. Tchemkou was struck in the jaw, loosening several teeth. The students then were forced into a police truck and taken to the police station where the beatings continued.
At the station, the police interrogated Ms. Tchemkou, threatened her life and told her that they would teach her a lesson for speaking out against the government. A.R.558. The police detained Ms. Tchemkou in a cell with numerous other prisoners. During her three-day incarceration, she had nothing to eat or to drink, and the cell in which she was placed did not have sanitation facilities. Because the cell was crowded and did not contain any benches or other furniture, Ms. Tchemkou was forced to stand throughout the duration of her detention. Additionally, because she was the only female in the cell, she was forced to clean the male prisoners' excrement off the floor.
Upon Ms. Tchemkou's release, she required a two-week hospital stay to recover from severe dehydration, fever, stomach pain and other physical injuries.1 After Ms. Tchemkou's hospitalization, her parents feared for her safety and sent her to the neighboring country of Benin. She stayed in Benin for two and one-half years. During that time, she received psychological counseling to overcome depression. Ms. Tchemkou returned to Cameroon in December 1996 against her parents' wishes. Although she returned, she kept to her parents' home for another year.
In January 1998, Ms. Tchemkou began attending the University of Dschang. There, she became friendly with several members of the Social Democratic Front ("SDF"), the primary political opposition organization in Cameroon. Ms. Tchemkou learned that her uncle, an SDF official, was hosting a party in a nearby town. Ms. Tchemkou traveled to the party with several members of the SDF in a bus decorated with SDF banners. On the return trip, the police stopped the bus, demanded the students' identity papers and took down their names. The police asked Ms. Tchemkou whether she had "come [to the university] to study or do politics?" A.R. 105.
In May 1998, Ms. Tchemkou learned that the university was closing its psychology department. According to Ms. Tchemkou, the government believed that the professors and students in the department were sympathetic to opposition groups. See A.R.108-09, 559. Ms. Tchemkou met with other psychology students to discuss ways to prevent the department's closure. Shortly after the meeting began, police, armed with guns and batons, raided the meeting. They told the students to disband and to leave any papers behind, including the attendance sheet the students had signed.
Later that night, as Ms. Tchemkou prepared for bed, she heard pounding and shouting at her apartment door. When she answered, three men wearing Cameroonian military uniforms forced their way into the apartment and turned out the lights. They immediately started questioning Ms. Tchemkou. After Ms. Tchemkou identified herself in response to their queries, "[t]hey said so yes indeed you are the person we are looking for." A.R.110. They accused Ms. Tchemkou of being a "Bamileke" and "against the government." Id. Ms. Tchemkou then was gagged, blindfolded, forced into the abductors' car and driven away from her apartment. After the car stopped, the soldiers dragged her through a wooded area, beat her and kicked her; as a result, she suffered scarring on her arms and shins. One of her abductors tore part of Ms. Tchemkou's left ear and told her not to return to campus. A.R.560. The soldiers then threw Ms. Tchemkou back in the car where she fainted from pain.
When Ms. Tchemkou regained consciousness, she was in a hospital where she remained for 24 days. During this time she was treated for a serious cut to her left earlobe as well as muscle aches. A.R.331. After her release, she returned to her parents' home and continued to receive physical therapy and psychological treatment.
Ms. Tchemkou did not return to school for over a year. In October 2000, she began attending the British College of Professional Management in Douala. In January 2001, local police in Douala arrested nine males for allegedly stealing a neighbor's cooking gas. It was feared that the teens had been executed, and Ms. Tchemkou coordinated with several political groups to try to determine what had happened to these young men. Together these groups organized peaceful demonstrations to pressure the government to disclose this information. The first demonstration was on March 4, 2001. When the protestors arrived, security officers already were on the scene and began attacking the crowd. Ms. Tchemkou suffered a baton blow to the head as police dispersed the protestors.
A second protest was scheduled for March 11, 2001. Again the police intervened, this time using tear gas and using water canons laced with chemicals to disperse the crowd. Police also beat the protestors with batons. Ms. Tchemkou was knocked to the ground; she was kicked and beaten with a baton on her back, elbows and shins. Ms. Tchemkou saw that the police were arresting some of the protestors and fled to a nearby church for sanctuary. The pastor of the church, after hearing of the police tactics, advised Ms. Tchemkou to stay at the church under his protection to assure her safety. Ms. Tchemkou remained at the church for two weeks while the pastor worked with Ms. Tchemkou's family to obtain an exit visa. The pastor also arranged for financing for Ms. Tchemkou's airfare and used his status as a clergyman to escort her through the airport without government involvement.
After Ms. Tchemkou arrived in the United States on April 9, 2001, the Cameroonian government issued two summonses for her to appear before the authorities.
A few months after Ms. Tchemkou had arrived in the United States, she applied for asylum. The asylum officer denied her request, and she was served with a notice to appear.
Before the IJ, Ms. Tchemkou conceded deportability but renewed her request for asylum, withholding of deportation and relief under the Convention Against Torture ("CAT"). At the hearing, Ms. Tchemkou testified to the above events.2 The IJ found that Ms. Tchemkou was "genuinely credible," A.R.55, but nevertheless determined that Ms. Tchemkou had not established past persecution. The IJ first stated that the mistreatment suffered by Ms. Tchemkou in 1993, 1998 and 2001 "were disparate offense[s] in which the most serious mistreatment that she experienced was a cut to her earlobe." A.R.53.3 The IJ continued:
I don't think these are comparable to which the Seventh Circuit4 has found past persecution. The incidents, although united by detention and beating in two of the three cases, and by government security forces either administering the beating or arresting the respondent or pursuing her, do share that theme. However, otherwise, they're very different. Namely they involve different places, respondent being involved in different activities. This is not a case for example, where the respondent's activity, the same activity participated encounters with government forces each time.
Additionally, the IJ determined that Ms. Tchemkou was not likely to suffer persecution upon her return to Cameroon:
I think that, given the sporadic and varied nature of the incidents separated one from another time and the rather mild encounter that the respondent had, [in] 2001, which was the last incident and the incident on which she claimed she based her...
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