CCPR/C/118/D/2115/2011
author moved to Denmark, arriving on 11 February 2011 without an entry visa. He claims
that he had contacted a person to whom he paid $16,000 to bring him to a safe country.
That person took the author to Denmark without requesting his consent. In fact, the author
was told he would be taken to Belgium; he realized that he was in Denmark when someone
informed him that he was in the Danish city of Sandholm.
2.6
On 15 February 2011, the author submitted a request for asylum to the Danish
Immigration Service. He argued that he feared that his and his relatives’ lives would be in
danger if he were to be returned to Iraq, since he was a member of the Iraqi Nation Party,
and that between March 2010 and February 2011 he had been a victim of four attacks by
unknown persons, presumably from an opposing political group.
2.7
On 25 March 2011, the Danish Immigration Service refused the author’s application
for asylum under section 7 of the Aliens Act. According to the author, the Service found
that his allegations were not coherent and credible. The Service had stated that his claim of
being a victim of political reprisals was not proportional to his political activities. The
Service had further stated that while the author had submitted 20 photographs of a bombed
house, he had failed to provide evidence that the house belonged to his parents. The Service
held that the author was not at risk of being prosecuted or subjected to torture, inhuman or
degrading treatment or of facing the death penalty in Iraq. They noted that the author could
live in the Kurdish autonomous area in northern Iraq where, according to the fact-finding
report published by the Service in April 2010 and the operational guidelines of the Home
Office of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, published in October
2010, any Iraqi citizen might reside safely. The Service forwarded its decision to the
Refugee Appeals Board for final review of the author’s case.
2.8
At the hearing held by the Refugee Appeals Board, the author noted that after
receiving the rejection from the Danish Immigration Service he had contacted the Iraqi
Nation Party by telephone and asked them to send a confirmation of his membership, and
that he had received the Party’s confirmation by e-mail. According to the Board, the
document was dated 10 May 2011, indicated the name and address of the headquarters of
the Party and that the author was an active member. It also had a stamp and the name of the
secretary-general of the Party. When questioned by the Board, the author stated that, by its
confirmation, the Party meant that he had been active when he was residing in Iraq and that
he was not active now.
2.9
On 18 May 2011, the Refugee Appeals Board confirmed the decision of the Danish
Immigration Service, and ordered the author to leave Denmark voluntarily within seven
days. The Board found that the author had not been able to substantiate, in a coherent and
credible manner, his alleged activities for the Iraqi Nation Party and the assaults against
him and the attempts on his life, and thus the risk to which he would be exposed if returned
to Iraq. The Board noted, inter alia, that the author had stated in the asylum application
form that he was a member of the Party, that he later had stated in the interview with the
Danish Immigration Service that he was not a member of the Party, but had merely
submitted an application for membership, and that he had finally stated before the Board
that he had been and continued to be a member of the party. The Board concluded that it
was not credible that the author, whose active membership had lasted for only seven days
and whose activities had consisted of anonymously helping to put up election posters,
would have been the target of such comprehensive retaliation from political opponents. The
Board pointed out that, according to his statement, the author had sustained only minor
injuries from the assault that occurred on 3 or 4 March 2010. Moreover, the author had
been unable to identify the persons behind the assassination attempts and the bomb
explosion on 4 December 2010 and had merely assumed that they were political opponents.
He was also unable to explain how those persons had managed to identify him, his car and
his parents’ residence.
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