CAT/C/37/D/277/2005
Page 3
The facts as presented by the complainant
2.1 The complainant, a veteran of the Iran-Iraq war, worked as a sheet-metal worker in
Yazd, Iran. In the spring of 1997, he had an argument with a Mullah during Friday prayers
regarding a sermon condemning homosexuality. Following the argument, he was attacked
and beaten by civilian policemen. The following day, he was arrested by three municipality
officials who sealed his shop. He was taken to Agahi (the security police station) where he
was detained for two months. During that period he was interrogated and tortured to make
him confess his opposition to the regime and to extract information about the persons or
organizations responsible for the murder of an Imam seven years earlier.
2.2 Two months after his arrest, he was threatened with torture and ordered to sign a
written confession, the content of which he was not allowed to see. After he had signed, he
was told that he had confessed to having been active against the regime and sentenced to 28
months’ imprisonment and hard labour. There were no court proceedings. He was then
transferred to a new prison, Khourdeh Barin, in Yazd, where throughout his imprisonment he
was subjected to acts of torture such as beatings and mock executions and being forced to
watch other prisoners being executed. He was freed in August of 2000, after serving his
sentence and being forced to sign an undertaking that he would no longer participate in
activities against the regime. He was taken home.
2.3 In February 2002, the complainant took part in a demonstration during which many
participants expressed dissatisfaction with the government and which was violently dispelled
by the authorities. Two or three days later he learned that all persons who had participated in
the demonstration were being arrested one by one. One evening, his house was attacked but
he managed to escape through the back door. He then fled to Astara, on the border with
Azerbaijan, and left the country with the help of a smuggler who arranged travel documents
for him via Azerbaijan and Turkey. He arrived in Sweden on 28 April 2002. He met with a
contact at Stockholm airport who was to assist him with his asylum application once he had
handed him his travel documents. However, the man took the documents and disappeared.
2.4 On 30 April 2002, the complainant applied for asylum to the Migration Board’s
Regional Office in Stokholm/Solna. A preliminary hearing was held on the same day, but no
interview took place then. On 27 February 2003, a full interview was held in the presence of
a state-appointed legal counsel during which the complainant presented detailed information
regarding the reasons for, and circumstances of, his escape from Iran. This interview lasted
two hours and twenty minutes and no other interview has held at any other stage of the
asylum procedure. Counsel provided the Migration Board with supplementary information
including two medical certificates which confirmed the existence injuries consistent with his
claims of torture as well as his medical journal attesting that he suffered from mental illness
and sleep disorder.
2.5 On 5 September 2003, the Migration Board rejected the complainant’s application. The
Board stated, inter alia, that it did not find his story credible because the complainant had not
submitted his asylum claim immediately upon his arrival in Sweden. Furthermore, though
acknowledging that certain interpretations of the Shari’a and Fatwas from religious leaders
have been known to result in capital punishment, the Migration Board, referring to provisions
of the Iranian constitution governing religious practices, argued that converts from Islam
were tolerated as long as they observed religion in private. The Board also considered that the