4.4
The State party submits that the claim of having been monitored by the
Tunisian authorities ever since his arrival in Saudi Arabia has not been substantiated
and that there is nothing to indicate that they knew of his activities in Saudi Arabia or
showed any particular interest in him at any other time between 1992 and 1997. In
this context, the complainant has not claimed that other Tunisians who participated in
the activities for which the authorities allegedly wanted to arrest him were tortured.4
In addition, the State party notes that he was granted a new passport by the Tunisian
Embassy in July 1992 and appears to have had contact with the Embassy without ever
receiving any indications that he was wanted by the Tunisian authorities or was
requested to return to Tunisia.
4.5
In the light of the above, the State party submits that the complainant’s claim
that in 1997 he was denied an extension of his passport on the grounds that he was
wanted for arrest by Tunisian authorities appears doubtful. As for the existence of a
decree in 1993 prohibiting the issuance of passports to wanted Tunisian citizens, the
State party has received no information to confirm this. The State party notes that the
Embassy’s refusal to issue the complainant a new passport was “for administrative
reasons”, and he has not demonstrated that there might have been any other reasons.
4.6
The State party also refers to two claims made by the complainant during the
immigration proceedings: firstly, that he had received letters from his wife in which
she referred to intimidation by the police after her return to Tunisia; secondly, that he
had received information that his father had been interrogated by the police about his
whereabouts in 1994. On the first issue, the State party notes that the complainant has
not submitted any details of the circumstances surrounding the alleged harassment,
nor has he submitted the letters or given any reason for not doing so. On the second
issue, the State party submits that the documents provided as evidence were examined
by the Aliens Appeals Board in its first decision and for several reasons considered
not to be genuine.
4.7
With respect to the second letter from the Chairman of Al-Nadha, the State
party submits that “given the assessment regarding the first certificate, the reliability
of the second can be put in question”. The Aliens Appeals Board had decided that the
first letter had been issued without the Chairman’s personal knowledge of the
complainant.
4.8
With respect to the letter from UNHCR, the State party submits that it appears
to have been based solely on the certificate by the Chairman of Al-Nadha and,
although the State party believes the certificate to be genuine, its reliability does not
appear to have been assessed by UNHCR in terms of a “foreseeable, real and personal
risk” test.
4.9
With respect to the letter from Amnesty International Sweden, the State party
submits, firstly, that it is not possible to tell from the letter what facts the complainant
submitted to that organization; thus, it cannot be ruled out that there may be
significant differences in content and detail between the information available to the
immigration authorities and the information available to Amnesty International.
Secondly, there is nothing in the note to indicate that Amnesty International had made
any assessment of the credibility of the complainant’s statement of facts. Neither is
6