CCPR/C/122/D/2595/2015
1.3
On 25 July 2017, the Committee, acting through its Special Rapporteur on new
communications and interim measures, denied a request by the State party to lift the interim
measures.
Factual background
2.1
The author was born in 1988 in Egypt. Military service is compulsory for men
between 18 and 30 years of age in Egypt and there are no alternatives to compulsory
military service. The author was called up for military service in late 2008 or early 2009.
He did not want to perform military service as this might have involved killing civilians. He
had also heard stories from others about how hard it was to be in the army. His brother had
been killed while serving in the Egyptian army and he did not want to suffer the same fate.
He therefore went into hiding in the mountains on a plot of land owned by his family, close
to his family home. In the period from 2008 to 2014, he regularly received military service
call-up papers, which stated that he could be brought before a military court if he failed to
report for duty. Sometimes the police would come to his parents’ house to inquire as to his
whereabouts.
2.2
At the beginning of 2011, he left Egypt and travelled to Italy, where he applied for
asylum. However, his request was denied and he was returned to Egypt. He was returned
from Italy on a flight to Cairo. He was not escorted by the Italian authorities and he
managed to evade passport control at the airport in Cairo by bribing an airport employee
and exiting through a side door.
2.3
The author stayed at his parents’ house for a few days. However, he was afraid that
the authorities would find out that he had returned, so he went back into hiding at his
family’s plot in the mountains. One month later, the police visited his parents’ home,
stating that they were aware that the author had returned, and asked about his whereabouts.
The police detained the author’s father, as he refused to inform the police about the author’s
whereabouts. The author’s father was later charged with being affiliated with the Muslim
Brotherhood. About 15–20 days after the police had detained his father, the author
encountered about 10 members of the Muslim Brotherhood in the mountains where he was
hiding. They invited him to become a member of the organization. He was afraid to refuse
immediately and responded that he would consider it. Five days later, the members
approached him again and asked why he had not contacted them. They requested the author
to go with them and showed him a small cave in which they had hidden their weapons.
They asked him to carry a small bag and place it under a car, in order to blow up the car.
The author again replied that he would think it over. However, he was afraid of the group
and he therefore decided to leave Egypt again. About two months later, he managed to find
an agent, who helped him travel to Europe via Libya. He arrived in Denmark on 6
December 2013 and applied for asylum. His application for asylum was rejected by the
Danish Immigration Service on 22 December 2014 and he appealed the decision to the
Refugee Appeals Board.
2.4
In its decision of 4 March 2015, the Refugee Appeals Board noted that, as his
grounds for asylum, the author had referred to his fear of being detained and sentenced to
imprisonment in case he was returned to Egypt because he had evaded military service. He
had also referred to his fear of being accused by the Egyptian authorities of affiliation with
the Muslim Brotherhood and, as a result, of being sentenced to imprisonment for 10–15
years. Finally, the author had referred to his fear of being killed by representatives of the
Muslim Brotherhood in case of his return to Egypt because of his refusal to join the
organization. The Board found that the author had made vague and inconsistent statements
on several points relating to the events prior to his entry into Denmark. It noted that the
author’s statement that he had first been called up for military service at the age of about 20
was inconsistent with the background information available. It further noted that, in a
statement to the Immigration Service, the author had indicated that he had been issued with
a passport in 2008 without the knowledge of the military authorities, which would have
been required for a male over the age of 18. The Board therefore concluded that it could be
assumed that the authorities had accepted the issuance of the author’s passport and his
departure. The Board found that it could not consider the author’s alleged conflict with the
Egyptian authorities about his call-up for military service to be a fact. The Board also found
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