CAT/C/38/D/268/2005
page 3
The facts as submitted by the complainant
2.1 The complainant is the local head of the Muslim League/Youth Organization (PML-N), a
political opposition party, in Sialkot, Pakistan. He has held this post since 5 March 2004. On
3 May 2004, he took part in a demonstration against the construction of a road in Sialkot and was
arrested by the police. He was released the next day.
2.2 On 6 August 2004, he organized a protest march from Sialkot to the town of Attock.
Some 3,000 militants took part in the march. When they arrived at Attock, the police used tear
gas and firearms to disperse the demonstration. One person was killed. The police held the
complainant responsible for this death.
2.3 Shortly afterwards, one of the complainant’s uncles, a well-known lawyer, asked him to
leave Pakistan because a criminal investigation had been instituted and the police had issued a
warrant for his arrest. The complainant left Pakistan on 12 August 2004 and arrived in
Switzerland on 27 August 2004.
2.4 The complainant filed a request for asylum in Switzerland on 28 August 2004; the request
was rejected by the Federal Office for Refugees on 8 September 2004. He appealed the
decision on 8 October 2004. The Swiss Asylum Review Board (ARK) rejected the appeal on
2 December 2004. On 21 January 2005, the complainant requested a review of the decision.
On 26 January 2005, the Review Board rejected the request and the complainant was instructed
to leave Switzerland.
The complaint
3.1 The complainant maintains that, if he were sent back to Pakistan, he would be exposed to a
serious risk of torture and ill-treatment in Pakistani prisons because of the criminal proceedings
currently under way for a murder that he did not commit.
3.2 The Swiss authorities have not challenged the facts as described above, or the allegation
that lower levels of prison and judicial authorities in Pakistan are corrupt. In view of the heavy
workload of the Pakistani courts, the complainant would remain in detention for years and would
be subjected to torture and ill-treatment by prison guards and investigators. The Swiss authorities
have also not taken issue with the allegation that, if the complainant returned to Pakistan, he
would have to undergo a very long period (several years) of pretrial detention, and that detention
conditions would be difficult and cruel (frequent acts of torture, lack of medical care, inadequate
sanitary conditions, violence without any protection from the prison authorities, overcrowded
cells, abuse by prison guards). The complainant belongs to a minority political party that has no
influence with the police and the courts, the lower levels of which are corrupt.
3.3 According to the complainant, the Swiss authorities expect that he will be acquitted by the
higher courts in Pakistan. Even if that were the case, the complainant would not be able to avoid
the risk of being subjected to torture or inhuman treatment in the local prisons during the (long)
years of criminal proceedings before the case was brought before a “higher and more
independent court” that would acquit him.