CCPR/C/115/D/2474/2014
communication is under consideration by the Committee. On 3 March 2015, the Committee
denied the State party’s request to lift interim measures. 2 The author remains in Norway.
Facts as presented by the author
2.1
The author submits that he was born in Kandahar, Afghanistan, but lived with his
family in the Islamic Republic of Iran from 1993 until 2004, when they were forcibly
returned to Kandahar.
2.2
On 15 November 2008, the author arrived in Norway and applied for asylum. In his
asylum application, the author asserted that on an unspecified date, he was kidnapped by
two men in Kandahar and held captive for several days before he managed to escape. His
family told him that the kidnappers had requested a large ransom for him and they asked
the author to find refuge elsewhere. The author maintained that he left Afghanistan as a
result of this series of events. On 11 August 2009, the Norwegian Directorate of
Immigration (UDI) rejected his application for refugee status, finding that the kidnapping
“was a criminal relationship” that did not meet the requirements for refugee status.
However, due to the presence of a general risk of ill-treatment, the Directorate
recommended that the author should not be returned to Kandahar but relocated internally to
Kabul.
2.3
On 8 September 2009, the author filed a complaint before the Directorate against its
decision and simultaneously filed a request for a stay of removal. In his complaint, the
author alleged that he had been in contact with his father two months earlier and had been
told that the reason for the kidnapping was a 17-year-old dispute over land ownership
between the author’s grandfather and a neighbour, both of whom were killed as a result of
the conflict. The author asserted that his family had fled to the Islamic Republic of Iran for
that reason and lived there for the next 11 years. The author further submitted that after the
family returned to Kandahar the conflict remained dormant for 3 and a half years, but after
his departure for Norway his family was subjected to threats and vandalism and again
sought refuge in the Islamic Republic. On 20 November 2009, finding no reason to reverse
its decision, the Directorate referred the author’s case to the Immigration Appeals Board
(UNE) for appeal proceedings and granted the author’s request for a stay of removal
pending a final decision on the appeal.
2.4
In November 2009, the author began to attend religious services and prayer meetings
at the Salstraumen church. On 6 February 2010, he was baptized. On 4 May 2010, he
submitted a confirmation of his baptism to the Immigration Appeals Board. On 5 April
2011, the Board dismissed his appeal, as a majority of the judges did not accept that his
conversion to Christianity was genuine. Specifically, the Board found that the author had
not sufficiently considered the supposedly grave consequences of his conversion; that his
understanding of the Christian religion was very superficial and seemed rehearsed; and that
he had not reflected over the differences between Islam and Christianity.
2.5
In the fall of 2011, the author applied for and was granted free legal aid from the
Norwegian Bar Association, which engaged a former senior priest of Oslo Cathedral who
held several meeting with the author to examine his Christian faith and conviction. The
2
Concerning its request to lift interim measures, in its observations on the admissibility and merits of
the communication, the State party considers that the Committee’s decision to grant these measures
was made in 12 days, whereas three domestic courts reviewed the same issue in depth, with the
benefit of being able to examine all the relevant evidence and having the author present. The State
party observes that the European Court of Human Rights denied the author’s request for interim
measures after all of the documentation presented by him in Norwegian had been studied by
Norwegian-speaking lawyers. The State party also notes that the author’s location is not known to the
Norwegian authorities and therefore he cannot be deported immediately.
3