CAT/C/35/D/237/2003
Page 5
2.5 By the end of 1999, after her husband published an article unmasking a gang of
organized crime which included former members of the military and the police, the
complainant received more death threats. Her husband was told that he would be killed unless
he went into hiding. They received another telephone call threatening that their daughter
would be raped if she came back from Sweden where she was visiting her grandmother. In
2000, when the complainant was returning home from a political meeting, she was attacked
by people who were driving a vehicle with tainted windows, and tried to run her over. As the
family feared for their lives, they moved to another house which was later on destroyed in an
earthquake in January 2001 On 16 March 2001, they fled to Sweden where they applied for
asylum on the basis of political persecution, as well as having become victims of torture and
natural disaster. The family received judicial assistance and attended an asylum hearing. The
complainant was provided with psychological treatment and diagnosed with post-traumatic
stress disorder caused by the experience of torture. The Swedish immigration authorities
reopened the family’s case and, on 15 March 2002, rejected their asylum claim, stating that
the human rights situation in El Salvador had improved, that the threats had ceased after 2000
and that the complainant’s health had improved. After unsuccessful appeals, the family was
deported to El Salvador on 21 March 2003.
2.6 Upon arriving to San Salvador, the family settled in Soyapango, the same place where
the complainant had been tortured at first. This situation allegedly had an enormous
psychological impact on the complainant. On 31 March 2003, while the complainant and her
daughter were driving in a taxi, they were abducted by gunmen who ordered them to get off
the taxi and forced them into another vehicle, where they hit them with the guns, ordered
them to stay with their faces towards the floor of the car and pretended to shoot them. The
kidnappers behaved in the same manner and followed patterns identical to those that the
police had used when they had previously captured the complainant. They searched the
complainant’s bag and passports. The complainant and her daughter were released after 30
minutes and left in a solitary wasteland close to a highway. The men warned them not to
denounce the incident to the police. In the days following the incident, the complainant’s
neighbours were visited by individuals who inquired about her and told them that she was a
“communist”. Her husband denounced the event to the police, which registered the case as a
robbery.
2.7 On 15 April 2003, after contacting the Salvadorian Lutheran Church, the family moved
to a she lter in San Salvador. They fled to Sweden on 27 May 2003 and applied for asylum on
5 June 2003. On 11 June 2003, the Swedish immigration authorities rejected their application
and ordered their immediate expulsion from Sweden. On 31 July 2003, the appeal was
rejected. The complainant alleges that there is no other remedy available to her or her family
to challenge the expulsion order, and that she has exhausted domestic remedies.
The complaint
3.1 The complainant submits that she fears being subjected to torture and being killed if
deported to El Salvador. Although state agents are not directly involved in the threats against
her life and personal integrity as well as the life and personal integrity of her family, the
State’s responsibility is said to be engaged because of the impunity with which death squads
operate, and because the death squads are financed both by right-wing personalities and the
ruling party, and their members have infiltrated the New National Civil Police which
conducts a policy of terror against FMLN’s members.