Matter of Izatula
Board of Immigration Appeals
20 I. & N. Dec. 149 (1990)
Izatula (petitioner), an Afghan national who assisted the mujahedin opposition movement while Afghanistan was under Soviet control, saw his brother captured and imprisoned by the secret police and feared similar imprisonment for his own political activity; after arriving in the U.S. in 1989, he was placed in exclusion proceedings and applied for asylum and withholding of deportation. An immigration judge denied his application, characterizing his feared harm as legitimate 'prosecution' rather than 'persecution,' and Izatula appealed.
Whether the general rule that prosecution for attempting to overthrow a lawfully constituted government does not constitute persecution applies in countries where a coup is the only means of achieving political change.