CCPR/C/117/D/2464/2014
1.1
The author of the communication is A.A.S., a Somali national from Mogadishu,
born in 1986. He is subject to deportation to Somalia, following the rejection of his
application for asylum in Denmark. The author claims that by, forcibly deporting him to
Somalia, Denmark would violate his rights under article 7 of the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights. The Optional Protocol entered into force for the State party on
23 March 1976. The author is represented by counsel.
1.2
On 7 October 2014, pursuant to rule 92 of the Committee’s rules of procedure, the
Committee, acting through its Special Rapporteur on new communications and interim
measures, requested the State party to refrain from deporting the author to Somalia while
his case was under consideration by the Committee. The State party acceded to this request.
1.3
On 29 January 2016, the Committee, acting through its Special Rapporteur on new
communications and interim measures, denied the State party’s request to lift interim
measures.
The facts as presented by the author
2.1
In 1992, at the age of five, the author left Somalia with his family because of the
civil war there. He lived in Yemen with his family until September 2011, when the author
and his brother, M.A., left for Greece owing to conflicts with a resistance cell called
Balatika that pursued Somalis and was in opposition to the Yemeni authorities. They
arrived in Greece by boat from Turkey on 2 October 2011. The author was arrested on
arrival, fingerprinted and then released with “a paper”, requesting him to leave Greece in
one month. On 26 September 2012, the author was arrested and imprisoned in Greece. He
contracted tuberculosis and was under a hospital treatment for about eight months. On
26 September 2012, i.e. the date of the author’s arrest, his brother left Greece, entered
Denmark and applied for asylum. On 20 March 2013, the author’s brother was granted
protection status by the Danish Immigration Service under section 7 (2) of the Aliens Act.
2.2
The author entered Denmark on 24 August 2013 without valid travel documents. He
flew from Italy to Copenhagen, where he was arrested at the airport because he held a false
Italian passport that showed the author’s photograph but was issued in the name of a third
person. The author was detained for four days and then released. He applied for asylum on
29 August 2013. As his grounds for asylum, he referred to his fear of the general security
situation in case of return to Somalia. The author also referred to the fact that he had no
family network in Mogadishu. He also stated that his father had told him that he could not
return to Somalia, without explaining the reason. He later learned that his family had fled
from Mogadishu because they belonged to an oppressed minority clan named Bagadi.
During the civil war in Somalia, the larger clans had oppressed the minority clans in the
country. Two of the author’s paternal uncles, one of whom was a pilot and the other one a
lawyer, had been killed in Somalia. Due to the ongoing ethnic cleansing of the Bagadi clan,
the author’s larger family had decided to flee Somalia and had been split up on the way,
with his parents’ family ending up in Yemen.
2.3
On 19 March 2014, the Danish Immigration Service rejected the author’s application
for residence under section 7 of the Aliens Act. On 4 September 2014, the Refugee Appeals
Board upheld the decision of the Danish Immigration Service. Both the author’s brother
and their paternal aunt, who lives in Denmark, testified during the proceedings. Although
the Board had found the author’s statements to be facts, the majority of its members had
concluded that the individual circumstances relied upon by him, including his language
skills,1 clan affiliation and lack of social network, had not been of such a nature as to justify
1
2
The author speaks and understands Somali but has difficulty reading and writing.