CCPR/C/125/D/2345/2014
rights under articles 6, 7, 14, 18 and 26 of the Covenant. In the subsequent submission of
30 November 2015, the Committee was informed that the author was claiming a violation
of article 13 instead of article 14 of the Covenant. The Optional Protocol entered into force
for the State party on 23 March 1976. The author is represented by counsel.
1.2
When submitting the communication, on 7 February 2014, the author requested that,
pursuant to rule 92 of its rules of procedure, the Committee request the State party to refrain
from deporting him to Afghanistan while his case was being considered by the Committee.
On 11 February 2014, the Committee, acting through its Special Rapporteur on new
communications and interim measures, decided not to accede to the request. The author was
forcibly returned to Afghanistan on 10 February 2014.
Factual background1
2.1
The author is an ethnic Hazara of the Shia Muslim faith from Mazar-e-Sharif in
Afghanistan, where he lived with his parents and sister. When he was about 9 years old, his
mother died. When the author was about 10 years old, his father was kidnapped by the
Taliban. Subsequently, he and his sister moved in with his maternal uncle in Mazar-e-Sharif,
where he stayed for about two months before fleeing to Kabul. The author went to school
for a few years and subsequently worked as a tailor and a carpenter’s apprentice in Kabul.
He was not a member of any political or religious associations or organizations or
politically active in any other way. On an unspecified date, the author left Afghanistan in
order to seek asylum in Sweden because he wanted “a peaceful life and an education”.
2.2 The author entered Denmark on 5 February 2011 without any valid travel documents.
The same day, he was stopped by the police in Denmark for illegal residence and applied
for asylum. As his initial grounds for asylum, the author referred to his fear of the reaction
of his maternal uncle and his uncle’s spouse if he returned to Afghanistan, because, on an
unspecified date, at least six years prior to his arrival in Denmark, he had apparently hit the
uncle’s son and had thrown a stone at his head.2 On 27 May 2011, the Danish Immigration
Service rejected the author’s asylum application pursuant to section 7 of the Danish Aliens
Act.
2.3
For the purpose of his counsel’s brief of 11 January 2012, in connection with the
hearing of the case before the Refugee Appeals Board, the author told his counsel that he
had been forced to be a slave and a “dancing boy” in Kabul;3 first – for about two to three
months – by A.S., a brother of the author’s employer, and later – for approximately the
same period of time – by A.N., a pimp. In this context, the author stated that he had been
held in captivity and had been forced to take part in sexual activities, originally by order of
A.S. and later by A.N., until he managed to escape after having stabbed A.N. in the throat
with a knife. A fight between him and A.N. was apparently seen by another dancing boy, 4
who had been brought to A.N.’s house by A.S. at the same time as the author.
2.4
On 16 January 2012, the Board upheld the refusal of the Danish Immigration
Service to grant asylum. The Board accepted the author’s original statements to the Danish
Immigration Service (see para. 2.2 above) as facts. The Board found that the initial grounds
for asylum could not justify asylum or protection status pursuant to section 7 of the Aliens
Act. The Board could not accept as facts the author’s statements about the grounds for
asylum invoked during the Board hearing, that he had been a dancing boy in Kabul. The
Board thus found that the author had failed to substantiate his grounds for asylum and it did
not accept his statements as facts. Moreover, the Board took into consideration that the
1
2
3
4
2
The facts on which the present communication is based have been reconstructed on the basis of the
author’s own incomplete account, the decisions of the Refugee Appeals Board of 16 January 2012
and 6 February 2014 and other supporting documents available on file.
These initial grounds for asylum are recorded in the author’s asylum registration report and his
application form of 10 February 2011, the report of the asylum interview conducted by the Danish
Immigration Service on 11 May 2011 and the report of the author’s statement at the Refugee Appeals
Board hearing on 16 January 2012.
A “dancing boy” (bacha bāzī) is a slang term in Afghanistan for young male adolescents or boys who
are forced into sexual relations with older men.
First name is available on file.