A woman from Eritrea, single mother of two children, applied for international protection in Germany on 8 October 2013, claiming persecution on account of her Pentecostal Christian faith, a religion banned in Eritrea. According to the applicant, her father was a Pentecostal priest and was arrested at the end of 2000 due to his religious beliefs. The applicant practiced her faith in secret Bible circles with a small group of up to 10 people, regularly preaching and reading the Bible. One day, the military stormed their house, beat the family, and killed her father. The applicant was then detained in a military camp, where she was interrogated, threatened with death, and raped by soldiers.  

On 29 September 2020, the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) rejected her application for refugee status and subsidiary protection but granted her a deportation ban. The applicant lodged an appeal against this decision before the Administrative Court of Braunschweig, presenting evidence of her continued religious activity in Germany. This included proof of baptism in June 2022, regular participation in prayer meetings, and active involvement in an Ethiopian/Eritrean Evangelical Church congregation. A witness testified that she had been a committed member of the church since 2020. The court found the applicant’s narrative coherent, plausible, detailed, and confirmed by witness testimony and documentation. Her ongoing religious practice in Germany was found to be genuine and personally significant, not adopted solely for asylum purposes. 

The court cited the ‘Report on the situation relevant to asylum and deportation in Eritrea’ of 16 October 2024, confirming that the Pentecostal church is prohibited in Eritrea. According to this report, its members are persecuted and sometimes detained by state authorities. Freedom of religion is severely restricted, and public worship or religious assembly outside the state-sanctioned churches is criminalised.  

The court noted that the risk of renewed persecution for known Pentecostals returning to Eritrea was considerable. It stated that religious persecution could be established when the practice of faith led to a serious threat to life, freedom, or physical integrity. The court noted that the applicant's religious convictions were of fundamental importance and an essential component of her identity. The court held that because of the applicant’s Pentecostal faith, she would be exposed to serious harm if returned to Eritrea, where such activity was prohibited and that she faced a well-founded fear of persecution under Section 3(1) of the Asylum Act, based on her religious beliefs and active practice of the Pentecostal faith. 

In conclusion, the Administrative Court of Braunschweig annulled BAMF’s decision and ordered it to grant refugee status to the applicant under Section 3(1) of the Asylum Act. It found that she faced a well-founded risk persecution on religious grounds due to her Pentecostal faith and active religious practice. The court held that such persecution was rooted in state criminalisation and violence against unregistered religious groups in Eritrea. Her circumstances met the legal threshold for refugee protection under Section 3(1) of the Asylum Act.