Guide to completing the Preliminary Information Questionnaire

This guide has been designed to explain some terms used and to help you complete the enclosed Preliminary Information Questionnaire (PIQ).

Making sure your form is complete

This is very important. You must answer all questions and provide as much information about your personal details, family life and asylum claim in all sections of the Preliminary Information Questionnaire (PIQ).

This is your opportunity to provide the Home Office with details of your asylum claim before your interview. It is important that you provide as much detail and information as you can. This will help with your interview.

All information you give must be true to the best of your knowledge and belief.

Claimant information

This must be completed. In this section, we are asking for information about your identity and the country you are from.

If you were born in a village, you should put this in the Town/City of Birth section. You must add which town your village is closest to.

Convention Reasons

To be recognised as a refugee under the 1951 United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, you must have left your country and be unable to go back because you have a well-founded fear of persecution for one of the five reasons listed in the Convention.

Your claim can be based on more than one of these. You must select all the reasons that apply to you. This includes both real and imputed reasons.

If your claim does not fall into any of these categories, there is a space in the PIQ for you briefly tell us the reason.

The following information is about the five Refugee Convention reasons.

Political Opinion – Political opinion can mean alleged, imputed or known opinions against, or critical of, a government or ruling party or other groups holding power. This is also extended to those who hold favourable opinions of a political group that is unpopular.

Religion – Membership of a religion, public or private worship, or giving or receiving instruction in a religion. This refers to followers of a religion or those who identify as atheists or agnostics or those who do not hold any religious beliefs.

Race – This includes ethnic, tribe and clan groups.

This will usually include membership of a specific group which comes from descent.

Nationality – This does not only refer to citizenship but can also mean membership of an ethnic or linguistic group.

Membership of a

particular socialParticular social groups are made up of persons of similar

group –background, social status or practices. They can be groups

defined by an unchangeable characteristic, some examples of these would include gender, sexual orientation or family situation. They can also be groups whose members voluntarily associate for reasons so fundamental to their dignity that they should not be forced to give them up such as members of human rights organisations or trade unions..

Family members

Page 8. In this section, we mean the following people who are related to you:

  • your parents
  • your siblings
  • your cousins
  • your aunts and uncles

Please also tell us about all family members living in the UK, who are directly related to you as above.

Family

Page 10. This section is for you to provide details of your family members.

The includes those who you have a genuine and subsisting relationship with,

This includes:

  • your civil partner, spouse or unmarried partner
  • your child or children
  • any other children who you are currently responsible for, including those you have adopted

In this section, a child means a person who is under 18 years of age or who, in the absence of documentary evidence establishing age, appears to be under that age.

In this section, an unmarried partner is a person who has been living together with the principal applicant in a subsisting relationship akin to marriage or a civil partnership for two years or more.

Documents

You must provide any documents and photographs needed in support of your asylum claim, please list these in the space provided. If you cannot send the documents in with your completed PIQ, please explain the reason or reasons why and tell us when you will be able to let us have them. You should submit the documents at your asylum interview or by returning them to the address on the front page of the PIQ as soon as possible.

You must provide original documents not photocopies. You should keep photocopies of any original documents you submit with the PIQ.

For all documents that are not originally in English, you must obtain a certified English translation for all of them. If you have a legal representative, you can ask them to do this for you. If you fail to submit a certified translation with your documents, this evidence may not be accepted.

Declaration

You must sign the declaration at the back of the PIQ to confirm that the information you have provided is both accurate and true to the best of your knowledge and belief.

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