CRPD/C/24/D/49/2018
applicant, who suffered from a life-threatening clinical condition, to Saint Kitts and Nevis
would amount to inhuman treatment as he would lack medical treatment, a livelihood,
housing and family support.5 The author submits that his case manifests a similar risk, as he
would be unable to maintain his own health without adequate care. He submitted to the
Committee a medical report dated 12 September 2017.
3.4
Similarly, the author claims that the courts in Sweden found that he would be able to
work in Afghanistan, but he subsequently obtained an assessment of his potential to work
that concluded that he would mainly be able to perform simple, administrative, calmer indoor
work. He would thus have great difficulties in finding work in Afghanistan. He submits that
this is a new circumstance that justifies the granting of international protection.
3.5
The author asserts that the Migration Agency and the courts never assessed the
situation that he would face upon return. They considered that it was not likely that he would
again be subjected to sexual abuse upon return to Afghanistan, even though they did not
question his history of sexual abuse. They considered only whether his disability was a
particularly distressing circumstance, which is insufficient given that Afghanistan is a
country where persons with disabilities are at risk of torture and other cruel, inhuman or
degrading treatment or punishment and that the author would lack adequate help and health
care.
State party’s observations on admissibility and the merits
4.1
By note verbale of 2 November 2018, the State party submitted its observations on
admissibility and the merits. It notes that the author applied for asylum on 25 August 2015.
The Migration Agency rejected his application on 14 October 2016 and decided to expel him
to Afghanistan. As the author had been determined to be an adult, the Migration Agency
applied higher standards in respect of the credibility of his statements. It questioned his stated
lack of knowledge of his parents’ situation, including with regard to the reasons why they
had not been permitted to live together and why they had returned to the village where they
had been threatened, particularly given that he had been able to give an account of his own
kidnapping and removal from the village by his paternal uncle.
4.2
The author had been unable to give a detailed account of how he had been threatened
in his childhood. He said only that his uncle had told him that he was being threatened and
that he was not allowed to go out by himself. His uncle had heard from acquaintances that
his maternal family wanted to kill him because he had been born out of wedlock, but the
author could not state who those acquaintances were or how they had received information
about the threats. The Migration Agency questioned this account on the ground that the
author had also claimed that for a time he had been in the keeping of his maternal family and
that they had injured him, but had still allowed his uncle to take him to Kabul. Furthermore,
he was unable to provide any concrete examples of the type of threats received. Thus, the
Migration Agency considered that he had not provided reliable information about the death
of his parents or the threats received in Kabul. Moreover, he had lived in Kabul for most of
his life without being subjected to any harm. The Migration Agency concluded that the author
had not plausibly demonstrated an individualized threat in Afghanistan. Neither were there
any indications that he would otherwise be at greater risk of being subjected to violence there
due to the prevailing conflict, nor any exceptionally distressing circumstances in the sense of
chapter 5, section 6 of the Aliens Act and section 11 of the temporary act limiting the
possibility to obtain a residence permit in Sweden.
4.3
The Migration Court rejected the author’s appeal on 1 March 2017. The Court
acknowledged that the general security situation in Afghanistan, including Kabul, had
deteriorated, but that conditions were not such as to justify the granting of international
protection to those who risked being returned there. Neither did the prevailing situation of
Hazaras provide such grounds. The Court found that the author’s account of the events in his
childhood could not lead to a different conclusion, as those events had occurred a long time
before and were based on second-hand information. Nothing had emerged to suggest that he
had been subjected to any harm in Kabul during his long residence there. If he nonetheless
5
European Court of Human Rights, D. v. United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland,
Application No. 30240/96, Judgment, 2 May 1997.
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