https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/asylum-seekers-uk-home-office-interviews-interrogation-a9576301.html
28th June 2020
‘It wasn’t an interview –
it was an interrogation’: How asylum seekers are made to feel ‘like criminals’
during Home Office questioning
[…] In other cases, asylum seekers spoke of male
interpreters being allocated when a female interpreter had been requested, or
allocation of an interpreter who spoke the incorrect dialect or poor English,
making it more difficult for them to explain their account fully to the
caseworker.
One woman, Sara, told the researchers: “I
requested for a female interpreter and female caseworker, but both were male
... Since I had [a] male interpreter, I couldn’t concentrate on the interview.
I was just thinking of the interpreter ... I told [the caseworker], ‘I can’t
share everything.’ They said, ‘Okay, that’s fine.’”
Ahmad, from the Middle East, meanwhile
describes having to explain being tortured for freedom of expression in his
home country through an interpreter who he said couldn’t speak a high standard
of English.
“Imagine trying to explain that there had
been a massacre, and your translator having to search for the appropriate word
on Google,” he says. “I can speak some English, and when I heard the
interpreter translating my words wrong, I would try to speak for myself, but
the interviewer kept on telling me to answer in Arabic for the translator.
“I tried to explain that I needed to speak for myself as the interpreter
was not saying what I was saying, but I was silenced. Worse yet, between the agonising
misinterpretations – they didn’t even get to the bottom of my story.”
Ahmad was initially refused asylum, but was granted on appeal. He has
now completed a master’s and plans to become a pharmacist.
He adds: “My application was denied because of the issues with my
interpreter. When I saw what the Home Office thought my story was, it was
completely wrong. The interpreter had mistranslated my story into a different
version of the truth.” […]
