Deportation from Denmark to Pakistan on the basis of inconsistencies in statement of persecution

Facts

The author is a Pakistani national and a Christian who ran an internet café in Pakistan. He received threatening letters accusing his internet café of being against sharia and hence illegal. Subsequently, there was a bomb explosion near the café and thereafter the author along with his family moved to Peshawar. At Peshawar, the author was assigned to maintain and operate a Church. There were two suicide bomb attacks in front of the Church after a service, which the author survived. After these incidents, the author actively planned to guard the Church premises, which he claims led to several anonymous threats against him and to him being attacked while guarding the Church. The author claims to have received more threats to his life. In 2014, the author fled Pakistan and sought asylum in Denmark. In 2015, the Danish Immigration Service rejected his asylum application, and an appeal was rejected by the Refugee Board in 2016. The Refugee Appeals Board re-examined the author’s refugee claim once again and refused it, citing inconsistencies in the author’s statements regarding his persecution. The author in the present communication claims that removing him to Pakistan would violate his right to life and right against cruel and inhuman treatment under articles 6 and 7 of the Covenant.

Admissibility

The Committee gave due consideration to the State party’s argument that the author had not exhausted domestic remedies with respect to his claims under articles 6 and 7 of the Covenant and that he failed to make use of the remedy of challenging the legality of administrative decisions before domestic courts. Recalling its jurisprudence that authors must exercise due diligence in the pursuit of available remedies, the Committee was of the opinion that this part of the communication was inadmissible under article 5 (2) (b) of the Optional Protocol. While noting the author’s claims of being subject to cruel and inhuman treatment on his return to Pakistan on grounds of his religious beliefs, and that the Refugee Appeals Board’s interpretation of asylum rules is erroneous and in violation of articles 6 and 7, the Committee also noted the State party’s argument that the author had insufficiently substantiated that he would be at a real risk of personal harm if returned to Pakistan.

On the basis of the evidence before it, the Committee held that the State party had taken into account all aspects of the author’s allegations including the general situation of Christians in Pakistan, and that author’s claims regarding his real and personal risk of persecution under articles 6 and 7 were insufficiently substantiated and therefore inadmissible under article 2 of the Optional Protocol. With respect to the author’s claims under article 13, the Committee observed that the author had been provided with the opportunity to submit and challenge evidence concerning his asylum claim, and that in his comments to the State party’s observations he had decided not to pursue his claims under article 13 and had agreed that no violation of his rights had taken place. The Committee hence considered his claims under article 13 to have been insufficiently substantiated and inadmissible under article 2 of the Optional Protocol.