CAT/C/71/D/883/2018
hand over to a third person a videotape that documented police violence against opponents
of the Government during a demonstration in 2008. The complainant was supposed to leave
the videotape at a certain place, for a third person to pick it up. The videotape was never
taken by that person and seemed to have disappeared. The day after the arranged handover,
the police came to V.M.’s home and accused him of having the videotape in his possession.
V.M. was questioned and assaulted in his house by police officers for several hours. He was
then subsequently visited several times, questioned and assaulted by the police and put in
detention. Due to those events, V.M., and his wife G.M., were forced to leave Armenia. As
the police were implicated in the incidents, the complainants felt that they would not obtain
protection in Armenia, and that any ensuing judicial proceedings would not be effective.
2.2
During 2008, the adult complainants fled to Ukraine, where they obtained work
permits. In 2014, when the war broke out in Ukraine, V.M. was called to serve as a soldier.
When he refused, he was labelled a deserter. V.M., together with his wife and first son, who
had been born in Ukraine, had to flee again, this time to Sweden. The complainants do not
specify their date of arrival in Sweden.
2.3
On 4 January 2015, the family applied for asylum in Sweden. On 9 October 2015,
their daughter was born in Sweden and her application for asylum was submitted on 27
October 2015. In their asylum applications, they claimed that they could not relocate within
Armenia, since they feared a risk of persecution for their perceived political opinions,
including the perceived possession of the videotape documenting abusive use of force by the
police against demonstrators.
2.4
On 4 September 2017, the Swedish Migration Agency rejected the family’s
applications for asylum and decided that they should be deported to Armenia. The Agency
argued that the family could obtain protection from the authorities in Armenia as the abuses
had been committed by individual police officers acting outside their professional capacity.
The Agency further held that the family should be able to obtain protection through national
courts. The family appealed against this decision to the Migration Court, requesting an oral
hearing, which was not granted.
2.5
On 12 April 2018, the Court rejected their appeal. The Court did not question the fact
that the complainant had been subjected to police violence; it found, however, that the family
could obtain protection in Armenia. The complainants requested leave to appeal against that
decision to the Migration Court of Appeal, which denied them leave to appeal, on 16 May
2018. Neither the Swedish Migration Agency nor the Migration Court questioned the
complainants’ accounts of events.
2.6
The complainants also submitted that on 8 March 2018, two police officers came to
their family home in Armenia, asking about V.M.’s whereabouts. V.M.’s mother had also
been contacted by phone several times by unknown persons asking for her son. She also
noticed individuals wandering around her house, and recognized one of them as a police
officer working in the neighbourhood.
Complaint
3.1
The complainants claim that there is a consistent pattern of gross and systematic
violations of human rights in Armenia, especially against journalists and opponents, who are
particularly subjected to persecution and abuses by the police.2 The complainants assert that
there are no effective remedies for victims of police violence in Armenia, and that the police
operate with impunity.3 Therefore, they maintain that they could not obtain protection from
the authorities upon return to Armenia.
2
3
2
The complainants refer to the Reporters Without Borders report of June 2014, the report by the
Danish Immigration Service of September 2016 on a fact-finding mission to Yerevan, and the United
States Department of State country report on Armenia of 2013.
The complainants refer to Human Rights Watch, “Armenia, limited justice for police violence”, July
2017, and the same organization’s World Report 2018, p. 42; and to the United States Department of
State country report on Armenia, of 2013. They also mention the judgment of the European Court of
Human Rights, of 19 October 2018, in Hovhannisyan v. Armenia (application No. 18419/13), which
states that Armenia failed to carry out an adequate investigation into an allegation of ill-treatment in