Gaya PRASAD, Petitioner, v. IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION SERVICE, Respondent

Petitioner Gaya Prasad is a native and citizen of the Fiji Islands. He is a Hindu of Indian descent. He petitions for review of the decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), which affirmed an immigration judge’s (IJ) decision denying his application for asylum and withholding of deportation. We have jurisdiction to review final orders of the BIA under 8 U.S.C. § 1105a. We grant review and reverse the BIA’s denial of Prasad’s asylum claim.

FACTS

One. year before the 1987 Fijian national elections, Prasad became active as a local delegate of the . Hindu-dominated Labour Party. He was also the secretary of the labor union at the cement factory where he had worked for 16 years. After the Labour Party won the elections, Prasad left Fiji in April 1987 for a family vacation. He was in the United States when a military coup by ethnic Fijians overthrew the elected Labour Party government in May 1987.

Upon returning to Fiji in June 1987, Pra-sad found that civil rights were severely restricted. He testified that if more than two people met in public, they were subject to arrest by military authorities. Prasad testified that friends in the Labour Party told him he would be…