G. Retaliation against victims, witnesses and any other person acting on behalf of torture victims 61. Protection against torture extends to those who act on behalf of torture victims. As such, the Special Rapporteur on Torture will intervene when measures of retaliation are taken or threatened against victims of torture, their relatives, members of civil society, lawyers working on torture complaints and medical or other experts acting on behalf of torture victims. 62. Article 13, CAT states: ‘Each State Party shall ensure that any individual who alleges he has been subjected to torture in any territory under its jurisdiction has the right to complain to, and to have his case promptly and impartially examined by, its competent authorities. Steps shall be taken to ensure that the complainant and witnesses are protected against all ill-treatment or intimidation as a consequence of his complaint or any evidence given’.383 H. Expulsion, Deportation, Rendering and Extradition 63. It is a guiding principle of human rights law that a State is not absolved of its human rights responsibilities where it returns an individual to another State where that individual is then exposed to a real risk of a violation of his or her core human rights by that receiving State or a third State.384 64. The absolute nature of protection from torture or inhuman or degrading treatment means that it would violate the right to protection from torture, inhuman and degrading treatment to deport (refoulement), render or extradite an individual in the knowledge that they will be tortured or subject to inhuman or degrading treatment.385 The principle of non-refoulement prohibits the expulsion of persons to States where there are substantial grounds for believing they would be at risk of torture or other serious human rights violations.386 65. Whether the State is regarded as being aware of the risk of ill-treatment if the applicant is removed includes not only actual knowledge, but also constructive knowledge, i.e. situations in which the State must have known of the risk. 387 66. The risk of such treatment has to be ‘personal and present’. A mere suspicion of torture is insufficient to engage this protection, but the test need not meet the standard of being highly probable.388 383 See also Istanbul Protocol, para 2(b). This obligation extends to circumstances where the individual is at risk from non-State actors and the receiving State is either unwilling or unable to protect the individual from these non-State agents. 385 Article 3 UNCAT, Article 33, Convention Relation to the status of Refugees. Soering v UK, European Court of Human Rights, 7 July 1989. 386 See e.g. N v Sweden, 20 July 2010, a case involving a deportation order to Afghanistan of a woman separated from her husband, where the European Court found a violation of Article 3. See also e.g. Auad v Bulgaria, 11 January 2012, where the Court emphasised the ’lack of a legal framework providing adequate safeguards’ in the respondent State and stressed the need for ‘rigorous scrutiny’. See also e.g. Iskandarov v Russia, 21 February 2011 387 Garabayev v Russia, 30 January 2008. 388 CAT General Comment No.1, U.N. Doc. A/53/44, annex IX at 52 (1998). 384 77