CCPR/C/132/D/2651/2015 Advance unedited version
1.2
On 28 September 2015, the Special Rapporteurs on new communications and interim
measures, acting on behalf of the Committee, decided not to issue a request for interim
measures.
Facts as submitted by the author
2.1
On 3 September 2013, the author came to Denmark with her son and applied for
asylum. She is an ethnic Oromo from Ethiopia and the daughter of an outspoken leader of
the Oromo Liberation Front (“OLF”), who died in prison in 2002 or 2003 after torture. She
escaped with her sister to Sudan three weeks after his death. Her other siblings and her mother
later also fled to Sudan, where the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
(“UNHCR”) recognised the family as refugees. The author participated in an OLF fraction
in Sudan through practical assignments and cultural events, but the Sudanese police
interrupted these meetings on three occasions. She therefore fled to Europe in 2006 and came
to Italy, where she was granted refugee status. However, she mostly lived in the streets, where
she contracted tuberculosis and was sexually abused. She conceived her son as a result of this
abuse and gave birth to him after escaping to Norway. However, she was returned to Italy,
where she continued to live in the streets for another two years before her travel to Denmark
in 2013.
2.2
In Denmark, the author was initially asked to leave to Italy in accordance with the
Dublin Regulation. This request was repealed when it became known that she had refugee
status there. In November 2013, she was asked again to return to Italy. In April 2015,
following the introduction of a new practice, her removal was cancelled and she was
informed that her asylum application would be examined on the merits. On 14 July 2015, the
Danish Immigration Service (“DIS”) rejected her application, “firstly” because she was not
persecuted in Ethiopia and, “secondly”, if her statements should have been accepted, then
Italy would serve as her country of asylum. The DIS decided that she may be removed to
Italy.
2.3
On appeal dated 4 September 2015, the Refugee Appeals Board (“RAB”) accepted
the credibility of the author’s account. However, the Board rejected her appeal because it did
not accept that she would be exposed to a concrete and individual risk, as she had stayed in
Ethiopia for three weeks following her father’s death without being persecuted. Moreover,
several of her family members had stayed there even longer, including her mother, who
stayed there until 2010, about four years after the author’s activities in Sudan had ceased.
Further, her activities for the OLF were less prominent. The Board’s decision stated that she
and her child may be removed to Ethiopia.
2.4
The author submits, inter alia, copies of her health records from 2013 to 2014, a letter
dated 30 August 2015 from the OLF Committee Chairperson in the United Kingdom1 and a
letter from the Italian Interior Ministry confirming her refugee status in Italy.
The complaint
3.1
The author claims that the removal of herself and her son to Ethiopia would breach
their rights under article 6 of the Covenant, as, given her family’s and her own activities for
the OLF, it would result in an immediate risk of losing her life at the hands of the authorities.
According to the author, this risk was acknowledged when Italy granted her refugee status.
3.2
The author notes that the DIS decided that she may be returned to Italy. However, she
lived in the streets in that country, contracted tuberculosis and was sexually abused, resulting
1
2
Inter alia, the letter states that the Chairperson has known the author as a supporter of the OLF.
Following her verification with Oromo community members in Khartoum, the author “had a good
record of participation in Oromo meetings and she interacted with Oromo individuals to discuss
Oromo political problems. She was regularly attending Oromo meetings in a specific place called
Shexxa Girref in Khartoum where Oromo people regularly meet. She sung many Oromo songs that
praise the OLF to the public and raised the awareness of Oromo people to stand against the current
Ethiopian government. She also supported the OLF financially by selling Oromo cultural dresses.
Please note that any participation in Oromo movements abroad is used as a pretext for Ethiopian
government agents to arrest Oromos if they go back to Ethiopia”. The letter further expands on the
risks for Oromo people in Ethiopia, including for returnees surveilled abroad.