CAT/C/48/D/424/2010
elections and were held on the so-called “Freedom Square” in the central part of Baku.
During one of these demonstrations, in response to the elections of 15 October 2003,
authorities attempted to repress the protesters and the complainant claims that he managed
to escape and not get arrested only because his father-in-law worked as a prosecutor in
Baku. He then went into hiding at his friends’ and acquaintances’ homes. He claims that his
wife told him that the police had searched for him in January 2004 and that they had
threatened to arrest her if they did not locate him. These circumstances and his fear of
persecution and other abuses caused him to leave Azerbaijan. The complainant submits that
he left Azerbaijan with his wife and children on 8 January 2004 and travelled to Dagestan.
The complainant submits that his wife and his children stayed in Dagestan.1
2.3
The complainant travelled to Moscow, where he has a brother, and then he
continued to Poland, where he got help from smugglers to continue to Hamburg. From
Hamburg he got help to buy a train ticket to Copenhagen and then to Stockholm. The
complainant applied for asylum on 19 January 2004, three days after he entered Sweden.
2.4
On 13 May 2004 the Migration Board rejected the complainant’s application for
asylum. The refusal was based on the conclusion that the complainant had not engaged in
much political activity and did not have a high enough position within the opposition party
to be of particular interest to the Azerbaijani authorities. The Migration Board concluded
that the complainant did not persuasively show how his return to Azerbaijan would
endanger his life. There were, according to the Board, no grounds to allow the complainant
to settle in Sweden for humanitarian reasons. The complainant appealed the decision. The
Aliens Appeals Board rejected the appeal on 18 April 2004.
2.5
On 22 May 2006 the complainant submitted a new letter to the Migration Board
stating again that he could not return to Azerbaijan and submitting that his fears about
returning to Azerbaijan had increased since the decisions of the Migration Board and Aliens
Appeals Board in 2004. The complainant also added that he had been in Sweden for two
years and five months and that he had adapted well to Sweden. On 13 June 2006 the
Migration Board rejected the complainant’s application and refused him a residence permit.
The complainant wrote yet another letter to the Migration Board, repeating his claim that he
could not return to Azerbaijan since there he faced persecution and other forms of abuse,
and even death. On 27 August 2006, the Migration Board rejected his request and referred
to its earlier findings.
2.6
On 20 April 2009, four years after the Aliens Appeals Boards decision became final,
the complainant applied for asylum again. During these new proceedings the complainant
stated that in addition to his previously stated grounds for asylum he also had become
active in politics in Sweden. To prove this, the complainant submitted his membership card
in the Azerbaijani opposition party Musavat. The complainant became a member on 25
June 2007 and became president of a local branch in Stockholm. On 20 April 2009, after
assessing the new circumstances described by the complainant, the Migration Board again
rejected his request, finding insufficient evidence of a threat to the complainant that would
call for asylum or protection.
2.7
On 7 January 2010 the complainant appealed the decision to the Migration Court.
On 6 April 2010 the Court rejected the complainant’s appeal. The Court agreed with the
Migration Board and noted that the general situation in Azerbaijan does not constitute
grounds for asylum or protection. The Court highlighted that the complainant’s reasons for
requesting asylum had in part been previously examined in connection with his first asylum
1
The complainant does not specify the whereabouts of his family now; nor does he explain how and
when he travelled from Dagestan to Moscow. He states that he could not stay in Dagestan since there
is an extradition treaty with Azerbaijan.
3