CAT/C/28/D/146/1999
page 3
Decision
1.1
The complainant is E.T.B., a Georgian citizen, born on 19 March 1974, on behalf of
herself and her two minor children, all three currently residing in Denmark at the Danish
Red Cross Centre for Refugees, where the complainant seeks asylum for the family. The
complainant claims that her return to Georgia after dismissal of her refugee claim would
constitute a violation of article 3 of the Convention by Denmark. She is represented by the
organization Let Bosnia Live.
1.2
In accordance with article 22, paragraph 3, of the Convention, the Committee transmitted
the communication No. 146/1999 to the State party on 11 October 1999. Pursuant to rule 108
of the Committee’s rules of procedure, the State party was requested not to expel the
complainant to Georgia pending the consideration of her case by the Committee. In a
submission dated 10 December 1999, the State party informed the Committee that it had decided
to comply with the Committee’s request not to expel the complainant and her children while
their complaint is under consideration by the Committee.
The facts as submitted
2.1
The complainant is a widow with two minor children, all Georgian citizens of Mengrel
ethnic origin. In Georgia she and her deceased husband, M.B., were working for the former
Georgian President, Gamsakhurdia (also a Mengrel), and his political party, the Zwiadists, and
for the Mengrel cause in Georgia. The complainant has been a member of the Zwiadists since
mid-1992, and started nursing wounded Zwiadists after she became a nurse in 1993. Her
husband and her father were fighting for the Mengrel partisan army.
2.2
On 19 November 1993, the complainant was arrested together with 30 other women,
among them her mother, while participating in an illegal demonstration of about 1,500 persons in
her home city Zugditi, against the Shevardnadze Government. All the arrested women received
a collective death penalty sentence. The prison guards beat them frequently, and five of the
women were executed. Prison guards raped two of her co-prisoners before they executed them.
One of the guards sexually mistreated and raped the complainant, and she expected to be killed
afterwards like her co-prisoners. However, shortly afterwards, on 31 December 1993, Mengrel
partisans attacked the Zugditi prison and liberated all political prisoners. The complainant’s
father was among the attacking partisans. After being released, the complainant moved with her
family to Gegetjkori. Meanwhile, the complainant’s husband lived in a Mengrel partisan camp
in the forest nearby. On 18 August 1994 he was wounded and captured by the Georgian army,
and thereafter executed.
2.3
On 3 February 1996, the complainant, her two children and her mother left Georgia
illegally, by boat to Poland and hidden in a truck to Denmark. They arrived in Denmark
on 12 February 1996. They went immediately to the police and requested asylum. A year later,
the complainant’s father also arrived in Denmark and requested asylum, after a long stay at a
hospital in the Caucasus Mountains. He was not aware that his family was already residing in
Denmark.