A woman from the former Soviet Republic of Georgia who arrived in Ireland in the storeroom of a ship two years ago has lost a High Court challenge to the rejection of her application for asylum here.
Lanzira Darjania (35), a mother of one from Abkhazia, a region in Georgia, had claimed she was persecuted in her native region because of her marriage in 1990 to a Georgian man from outside that region. She claimed she was raped and tortured. She also claimed she was beaten while pregnant in 1997 and lost her unborn child.
She sought a judicial review of the Refugee Appeals Tribunal's refusal of her application for asylum and contended it had erred in law in finding she had not established a well-founded fear of persecution if she returned to another part of Georgia. Those claims were rejected yesterday by Mr Justice Brian McGovern in a reserved judgment.
In 1992 Georgian troops fought the Abkhazian but were defeated, the judge said. As a result of the fighting her husband and all Georgians had to leave, and she and her son were hated by both sides. At first they fled to Georgia.
However, he agreed with the tribunal that internal relocation was an option. On that basis, he would reject the application.