CCPR/C/123/D/2423/2014 Annex Individual opinion of Committee members Christof Heyns, Marcia V.J. Kran and Yuval Shany (dissenting) 1. We regret that we cannot join the majority on the Committee in finding that, if the author were to be deported to the Islamic Republic of Iran by Denmark, it would constitute a violation of the Covenant. 2. While we do not disagree, in principle, with the Committee’s approach that both sincere and insincere conversions may create real risks for removed individuals and that, as a result, some converts may find themselves in situations analogous to refugees sur place regardless of the genuineness of their conversion (see para. 8.5), such a risk cannot be simply assumed. It needs to be established by the author in the circumstances of the case. Thus, even if the Appeals Board erred in focusing only on the genuineness of the conversion, and not on the consequences of the conversion for the author upon his return to the Islamic Republic of Iran, it has not been established by the author that his conversion is known to the authorities in the Islamic Republic of Iran, or even that there are substantial grounds for believing that failed asylum seekers such as himself, who have converted to Christianity abroad, are exposed to a real risk of irreparable harm, such as that contemplated by articles 6 and 7 of the Covenant, upon their return to the Islamic Republic of Iran.1 3. In reaching the conclusion about the risk faced by the author upon deportation, the majority on the Committee relied on reports from the public domain on the situation in the Islamic Republic of Iran for converts to Christianity generally, and returning converts specifically (see para. 8.7, footnote 31). We have some reservations regarding the propriety of the Committee’s occasional practice of relying on information not argued by the parties. In any event, we are of the opinion that the reports cited by the majority are not conclusive in their findings. 4. The Danish Immigration Service report suggests that converts in the Islamic Republic of Iran are not charged with the crime of apostasy and that no one has been arrested in recent years just because of a conversion; 2 the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom report suggests that if converts are targeted, this is generally because of proselytizing activity; 3 the United Kingdom Home Office report suggests that the treatment of returned converts depends largely on the way they practise their Christianity upon return to the Islamic Republic of Iran. 4 A similar conclusion, suggesting that public worshiping by Christian converts could lead to persecution (though not necessarily persecution qualifying as irreparable harm), is found in the report of the Austrian Centre for Country of Origin and Asylum Research and Documentation. 5 No pertinent information on the specific risk facing returning converts is found in the United States Congressional Research Service report.6 The information found in the reports thus appears to support the position that practising Christianity in public by converts from Islam 1 2 3 4 5 6 See the Committee’s general comment No. 31 (2004) on the nature of the general legal obligation imposed on States parties to the Covenant, para. 12. Danish Immigration Service, “Iran: house churches and converts”, February 2018, part. 1.3, available at www.refworld.org/docid/5ab8f2de4.html. United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, USCIRF Annual Report 2018, Tier 1: USCIRF-recommended countries of particular concern: the Islamic Republic of Iran, 25 April 2018, p. 47, available at www.refworld.org/docid/5b278edb0.html. Home Office (United Kingdom), “Country policy and information note: Iran: Christians and Christian converts”, March 2018, part 8, available at www.refworld.org/docid/5aa2aa2e7.html. Austrian Centre for Country of Origin and Asylum Research and Documentation, “Query response: Iran: House churches; situation of practising Christians; treatment by authorities of Christian converts’ family members”, 14 June 2017, available at www.refworld.org/docid/5943a44d4.html. Congressional Research Service (United States), “Iran: politics, human rights, and U.S. policy”, 3 October 2017, available at www.refworld.org/docid/59e884b44.html. 15