CCPR/C/116/D/2347/2014
him to come for an interview. He was not able to attend because on his way to the interview
he was beaten up and attacked with an axe by unknown individuals. In December 2008, the
author’s former employee threatened to send at least one of the pictures taken in 2006 to the
police if the author did not pay 1,000,000 rupees to LTTE. The author states that he told his
former employee that he could regularly take some money from his shop in Badulla. The
author sold all the goods in his shop and closed it down. 4 The author submits that, after he
closed his shop, at the end of June 2009, he was threatened again by his former employee.
As he refused to give him the money, the author submits that his former employee sent the
picture or pictures to the police. The author fears that the Sri Lankan authorities suspect
him of being a member of LTTE. The author claims that, in 2009, after the police allegedly
received the picture or pictures, the police looked for the author in his store and ransacked
it.5
2.6
The author, together with his child, arrived in Denmark on 25 November 2009 with
a temporary visa. He applied for asylum with his child, who was a minor, on 19 February
2010. He was interviewed by the police on 29 March 2010 and filled in an asylum
application form on 13 April 2010. The author was interviewed by the Danish Immigration
Service on 7 May 2010. On 27 May 2010, the Service rejected the author’s asylum request.
On 23 November 2010, the Refugee Appeals Board rejected the author’s appeal and
confirmed the decision of the Service not to grant him asylum. 6
The complaint
3.1
The author submits that, by deporting him to Sri Lanka, Denmark would violate his
rights under article 7 of the Covenant. The author claims that he fears being detained and
tortured if returned to Sri Lanka because of his perceived link to LTTE.
3.2
The author claims that information on Sri Lanka 7 supports the fact that Tamils who
are deported or who voluntarily return to Sri Lanka are at risk of being subjected to cruel,
inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. The author states that the United Kingdom
of Great Britain and Northern Ireland suspended the removal of a group of failed Tamil
asylum seekers to Sri Lanka out of concern for their safety. The author adds that
Switzerland had suspended all expulsions to Sri Lanka until it had the results of two cases
in which rejected asylum seekers claimed to have been tortured after their return to Sri
Lanka from Switzerland. The author also stresses that some reports refer to cases of former
Sri Lankan (in particular Tamil) asylum seekers who were detained and ill-treated or
4
5
6
7
The author did not specify the exact date. The author had a shop with two sections: one with
convenience goods, which he closed down, and another with dried fish, which he transferred to
another employee.
According to the author’s statement before the Refugee Appeals Board, this happened in July or
August 2009, and the author was not in the store at that moment. The author found out about this
incident through another person employed to work at his store. The author and his child were living in
Kandy by that time. They waited in Kandy until the author got his visa to go to Denmark in
November 2009.
The author did not mention, either in his initial submission or in his comments to the State’s
observations, the decisions of the Refugee Appeals Board of 14 March 2011 and 23 March 2012, both
refusing to reopen the author’s asylum proceedings.
The author refers to the UNHCR Eligibility Guidelines for Assessing the International Protection
Needs of Asylum Seekers from Sri Lanka (21 December 2012), pp. 8 and 27; Human Rights Watch,
We Will Teach You a Lesson: Sexual Violence against Tamils by Sri Lankan Security Forces (26
February 2013), pp. 4, 5, 29, 32, 25-26, 32-36, 38, 40-41, 43-44 and 106; Freedom from Torture, Out
of the Silence: New Evidence of Ongoing Torture in Sri Lanka, 2009-2011 (2011); and United States
of America, Department of State, country report on human rights practices in Sri Lanka for 2012,
available from http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/204623.pdf.
3