Salari

MEMORANDUM *

Mohsen Salari, a native and citizen of Iran, petitions for review of the decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) denying his application for asylum and withholding of removal.

Salari testified that because he abandoned the Muslim faith and joined a minority religion, he was persecuted by the Iranian government in the past and has a well-founded fear of future persecution. The government asserts that the BIA treated Salari’s testimony as credible and based its argument before us on that assumption. We take the government’s case as it is presented to us. Accordingly, we accept Salari’s testimony as true, and we hold that he has established a well-founded fear of future persecution.

In order to qualify for asylum on the basis of fear of future persecution, Salari’s “fear of persecution must be both subjectively genuine and objectively reasonable.” Hoxha v. Ashcroft, 319 F.3d 1179, 1182 (9th Cir.2002) (internal citations and quotation marks omitted). “The reasonableness of the fear must be determined in the political, social and cultural milieu of the place where the petitioner lived, and even a ten percent chance of persecution may establish a…