CCPR/C/123/D/2423/2014 the State party decided to reopen the case on the basis of the new sur place asylum motive and granted asylum without using the general credibility argument against the applicant. 16 5.6 Therefore, the author considers that the Danish Refugee Appeals Board’s decision of 27 March 2014 is manifestly unreasonable and arbitrary. Additional submission from the State party 6.1 On 11 April 2017, the State party provided further observations to the Committee, generally referring to its observations of 11 December 2014. The State party reiterates that the author failed to establish a prima facie case for the purposes of admissibility and that the communication should be declared inadmissible for the reasons already mentioned. In particular, the State party interprets the author’s comments to mean that he has waived his claim under article 14 and that the part of his communication relating to articles 2, 13 and 26 concerns only the circumstance that the decision of the Danish Refugee Appeals Board cannot be appealed before the courts. However, the State party maintains that the author has failed to establish a prima facie case for the purposes of admissibility of those claims. 6.2 As to the author’s allegations that he will be persecuted by the Iranian authorities if he is returned, on account of his former membership with the Basij, the State party recalls that in its decision of 27 March 2014, the Danish Refugee Appeals Board could not accept as a fact the author’s statement that he had been persecuted at the time of his departure from the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Refugee Appeals Board dismissed essential elements of the author’s account of his conflict prior to his departure as being non-credible, including his statement regarding his membership and work for the Basij. The circumstance whereby the author may have left the Islamic Republic of Iran illegally cannot by itself lead to the conclusion that he must be deemed to risk persecution or abuse in case of return. In that connection, background information states that an Iranian person who seeks to return to the Islamic Republic of Iran without a passport will be granted a laissez-passer by the Iranian embassy and — if no adverse interest has previously been manifested by the Iranian State — he or she will not face any real risk of persecution upon return on account of having left the country illegally and/or being a failed asylum seeker. 17 This background information also indicates that it is not a criminal offence in the Islamic Republic of Iran for any Iranian to ask for asylum in another country, and a person who has left the Islamic Republic of Iran illegally and who is not registered on the list of people who cannot leave the Islamic Republic of Iran will not face problems with the authorities upon return — though the persons may be fined. A person who has committed a crime and has left the Islamic Republic of Iran illegally will only be prosecuted for the crime previously committed and not for leaving the country illegally.18 6.3 The Danish Refugee Appeals Board took into account the author’s general credibility when assessing the evidence but also considered the circumstances of his alleged conversion. Accordingly, in their reasoning for refusing the author’s application for asylum, the majority of the Board’s members did not merely focus on the Board’s dismissal of his initial grounds for asylum as being non-credible. 6.4 The circumstance whereby an asylum seeker has been baptized and has participated in various religious activities does not in and of itself render it probable that he or she has actually converted. The majority of the members of the Danish Refugee Appeals Board found that the author had failed to substantiate that his conversion to Christianity was genuine, despite the certificate of baptism, the pastors’ declarations that he produced and his knowledge of the Christian faith. In their assessment of the author’s general credibility, the majority of the members of the Refugee Appeals Board attached considerable importance to the author’s inconsistent statements on his activities for the Basij and on his 16 17 18 The author’s counsel refers to other similar cases that he has brought against Denmark, which were submitted to the Committee and were subsequently discontinued. Decision by the Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) of the United Kingdom of 10 May 2016 in S.S.H. and H.R. v. Secretary of State for the Home Department ([2016] UKUT 00308 (IAC)), para. 33. Home Office (United Kingdom), “Country information and guidance: Iran: Illegal exit”, July 2016, para. 5. 9