CCPR/C/114/D/2393/2014
lifted (see para. 4.11 below). On 31 March 2015, the Special Rapporteur on new
communications and interim measures decided to deny the request to lift interim measures.
Factual background
2.1
The author is an Afghan Sunni Muslim of Pashtun ethnicity. Between December
2006 and May 2011, he worked as an interpreter for the American forces in Afghanistan,
specifically in the provinces of Kandahar, Nuristan, Jalalabad and Maidan Wardak.2 He
asserts that, during that time, he received threats over the phone on various occasions owing
to his work for the United States military forces in Afghanistan.3 He argues that the Taliban
also disseminated so-called “night letters” in the streets, on three different occasions, in
which his name was mentioned as an “example of a traitor”. He further notes that his
cousins called the author’s father and told him that the author “should not be collaborating
with the infidels”.
2.2
The author argues that he left Afghanistan because of all those threats. The author
travelled to Germany lawfully to attend a seminar, and from Germany he travelled to
Denmark, where he arrived on 30 May 2011. On 1 June 2011 he requested asylum in
Denmark. He was interviewed by the Danish police on 7 June and he filled out an
application form at the Danish Immigration Service (DIS) on 9 June. On 4 and 31 January
2012, the author had two interviews with the DIS. On 17 February 2012, the DIS rejected
the author’s request for asylum.
2.3
On 24 June 2013, the Refugee Appeals Board (RAB) rejected the author’s appeal
against the decision handed by the DIS. The RAB questioned the author’s credibility,
arguing that he had provided contradictory and at times evasive accounts to several
questions during his interviews with the DIS and during the hearing before the RAB. The
RAB noted, in particular, that the author had not mentioned the “night letters” allegedly
sent by the Taliban in his asylum application and had said in his initial interview that the
“night letters” referred generally to “those who collaborated with the Americans” being
severely punished. It was only during the Board hearing that he author stated that his name
had been mentioned in three of those “night letters”. When asked about those discrepancies
and about the way in which he became aware of the existence of such letters, the author had
provided an evasive and unconvincing explanation, noting that he had accidentally learned
about the letters through his work as an interpreter. The RAB further questioned the
author’s account over the phone threats received from the Taliban, as well as threats
received from local population and from his cousins through the author’s father. The RAB
noted that, in his second interview with the DIS, the author argued that he was in conflict
with the local population, who accused interpreters of being responsible for killings, but he
2
3
The author provides a memorandum from the United States Department of Defence — Combined
Security Command in Afghanistan, dated 10 June 2011, notifying the Mission Essential Personnel —
the agency serving the Department of Defence and having employed the author — of the return of the
author’s passport upon expiration of an “Absent without leave” period. The author also provides a
letter of recommendation by a United States Army official supporting his visa application. In this
letter, the official acknowledges that he had been the author’s direct supervisor and that he had
remained in contact with him and with Regional Corps Advisory Command-Central since the United
States official’s departure from Afghanistan in August 2009 and that it was “his understanding from
both that the threats against [the author] escalated and, as a result, [the author] made the decision to
flee Afghanistan on an official trip to Germany”.
No precise information is provided on the content of these alleged threats. According to the factual
background established in the decision by the Refugee Appeals Board of 24 June 2013, the author
alleged having received around 20 threats between 2008 or 2009 and the end of 2010. Additionally,
the author allegedly received, via his father, several threats from his cousins by phone since 2007 and
until his departure from Afghanistan.
3