An Iranian woman jailed for adultery after fleeing an abusive marriage and the father who vowed to kill her, has been given the chance to re-apply for a humanitarian visa a decade after seeking asylum in Australia.
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The Federal Court last month quashed an "irrational" 2018 Immigration Assessment Authority decision following a ministerial call not to grant the woman safe haven.
The authority, established by Tony Abbott's coalition government nearly a decade ago, is tasked with reviewing fast-track options to refuse protection visas by the federal immigration minister but has come under fire
Judge Heather Riley's ruling allows the 37-year-old and her two children, both born in Australia, to have the application reviewed again.
She is not being named for fear of repercussions.
In 2013 the woman was detained in custody for a week in Tehran on adultery charges even though she had by then been divorced from her husband for two months, before being bailed.
"Police broke the door, hit me, handcuffed me on the floor and bundled me up in a police van. I wasn't even dressed properly. It was very scary," she tells AAP.
"Even after 10 years I always remember this incident. I'm still scared at the sight of police in Australia. I know I haven't done anything wrong but always I'm scared of them."
Iran's targeting of women has surged in recent years prompting uprisings that resonated internationally with protesters, including in Australia, following the custody death of 22-year-old Kurd Mahsa Amini last year.
The Tehran woman's biggest fear though stems from her abusive and strict religious father who regularly beat her and threatened several times to kill her to salvage the family's honour.
The woman argued before the assessment authority that her ex-husband would leak disparaging videos of her to her father and on social media to force her to financially support him.
He eventually told her father, who vowed to kill her, prompting the computer scientist to immediately sell her belongings, fly to Malaysia and then Indonesia before boarding a boat to Australia.
She was detained on Christmas Island, then in Darwin, and later released into the community on a bridging visa which she renews yearly.
A third of Australia's asylum seekers over the past decade are Iranians who live in the community on bridging visas with restrictions such as working hour caps and access to Medicare and childcare subsidies.
"I applied for a humanitarian visa where I had an interview with immigration department officers but they didn't believe my story, saying, 'How can your father be so strict and allow you to study?'" she says.
"He forced me to wear hijab and he used to beat me day and night when I was on my period because I was not fasting. They sent me to IAA who rejected me as well."
She has since renounced Islam, which is punishable by death in Iran.
Judge Riley says irrationalities in the authority's reasoning process mean its overall conclusions were unsound.
"There is a biased assumption that to be a refugee you have to be poor," according to Deakin University refugee legal expert Maria O'Sullivan.
She says the authority's decisions are based on "the papers", meaning written applications by refugees accompanied by recordings of their initial interviews with immigration officials, and Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade intelligence.
If the authority is not convinced, the asylum seekers have an opportunity to present their arguments within 28 days.
Dr O'Sullivan says the lack of oral hearings limits due process which increases the scope for legal errors creating a backlog in the courts.
"One of the inefficiencies of the authority is that people aren't given due process with an oral hearing ... and the problem with not having an oral hearing is that credibility becomes very problematic."
Analysis by the Refugee Council of Australia shows more than 80 per cent of applicants from Iran succeeded in being granted protection visas under a previous refugee tribunal system from 2009 to 2013 before the authority was tasked with assessing applications.
That figure has since plummeted to 16 per cent.
It is also a criticism levelled by the woman, who feels the arm's length legal process has taken a toll on her mental health and years off her life.
"If I had face to face interviews then it would affect them (assessors)," she says.
"Maybe they feel my pain, they see my face and that I'm not lying.
"I have two kids one with bridging visa and one without any visa at all. I have depression. How long do I have to wait?
"I came to Australia for a better life but waiting for the last 10 years has aged me by decades."
Australian Associated Press
