Maybe not. Sometimes some countries do change government and then people decide to return (that happened in Europe for example with the Berlin wall fall).
That is exactly what refugee status was meant for (a temporary shelter waiting until the original country gets better off).
Yes for some time you can have problems to travel, but in this case I would not see it impossible, if that was very good explained with some proof what was changed in your country (for example dictatorship regime was overthrown and now democracy was settled and the threat on his life has disappeared).
Anyway his case would look far better than the cases where people got PR and then they were suddenly ever so often travelling to their country (but with no intention to live there).