CAT/C/67/D/775/2016
The complaint
3.1
The complainant asserts that the State party would violate his rights by removing
him to Ethiopia, where he would face a substantial risk of being subjected to torture or
inhuman or degrading treatment. He claims that he would be arrested because of his
dissident activities, most likely at the airport in Addis Ababa, and would be detained,
tortured and interrogated by agents of the Ethiopian secret service. Because he was tortured
in Ethiopia in the past, it is foreseeable that he would face a risk of being tortured there
again.
3.2
In decisions issued in 2007, 2010, 2012 and 2016, the Federal Administrative Court
noted that the Ethiopian authorities monitored the activities of the diaspora and that
political activists thus identified might face arrest upon arrival in Ethiopia, unless they had
clearly distanced themselves from their former political activities.
3.3
In its decision on the complainant’s asylum application, the State Secretariat for
Migration considered that he had not provided detailed answers concerning his political
activities and that there were factual discrepancies in his account of relevant events.
Moreover, the Secretariat did not find the complainant’s account of imprisonment credible.
The Federal Administrative Court considered that the complainant did not have a
sufficiently high profile to attract the attention of the Ethiopian authorities.
3.4
However, the complainant had informed both the State Secretariat for Migration and
the Federal Administrative Court about the torture that he had endured during his
imprisonment. He had also provided photographs of the scars on his back. The shape of
those scars clearly indicates that the injuries were inflicted by whiplash. Yet, instead of
ordering a medical examination, the Court merely stated that the cause of the scars was
unknown, and that the photographs did not prove that he had been persecuted. This failure
to adequately examine the complainant’s claim that he had been tortured in the past
demonstrates that the Swiss authorities did not properly assess the risk of torture that he
would face upon return to Ethiopia.1 The complainant does not have the means to undergo a
medical examination at his own expense.
3.5
Although the complainant stated during his asylum interview that he had been
tortured, his interviewer did not ask any follow-up questions and, instead, changed the
subject. The complainant stated that he had been imprisoned and tortured in 2006 and 2007.
In response, the interviewed asked him whether there had been any other important,
memorable events, apart from the imprisonment. Nor was the complainant asked further
questions about the other times when he was taken into police custody.
3.6
The Federal Administrative Court also disregarded a letter issued on 20 November
2015 by a branch of Ginbot 7 in the United States. It is stated in that letter, inter alia, that
the complainant is a member of the Ginbot Movement for Justice Freedom and Democracy;
that he is actively engaged in the activities of the movement for prevalence of democracy in
Ethiopia; and that Ginbot 7 has no doubt that, if Switzerland were to force him to return to
Ethiopia, he would gravely suffer in the hands of the agents of the repressive regime that
has been spending millions of dollars spying on individuals who have any sympathy for or
affiliation with Ginbot 7 organization. It is also stated in the same letter that members of
Ginbot 7 are vulnerable and require protection from systematic persecution by the
Government of Ethiopia, which uses espionage to observe dissident Ethiopians living
abroad. The complainant maintains that, although the Ginbot 7 branch in the United States
only provides such letters to long-standing party members and not to mere sympathizers of
the movement, the Court did not take into account this crucial piece of evidence in its
decision on the complainant’s appeal.
3.7
Any adverse inferences drawn from discrepancies between the complainant’s
statements during the screening interview and the substantive asylum interview must be
viewed with caution, because applicants are instructed to keep their explanations brief
1
The complainant cites Ali Fadel v. Switzerland (CAT/C/53/D/450/2011), para. 7.6.
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