CCPR/C/125/D/2439/2014 by the Danish Refugee Council and subsequently by Niels-Erik Hansen. The Optional Protocol entered into force for Denmark on 23 March 1976. 1.2 On 4 July 2014, pursuant to rule 92 of its rules of procedure, the Committee, acting through its Special Rapporteur on new communications and interim measures, requested the State party to refrain from deporting the author to the Islamic Republic of Iran while his case was under consideration by the Committee. However, on 11 February 2015, the Committee decided to accept the request by the State party to lift the interim measures. The facts as submitted by the author 2.1 The author is an ethnic Azeri and Shia Muslim from Tehran. In 2010, together with a friend, he started to sell satellite dishes. On an unknown date in the autumn of 2010, the police searched their storage place. Having discovered the satellite dishes, the police arrested the author and his friend and held them in detention for four days 2 at a police station. While in detention, the author and his friend were threatened with torture and exposed to “psychological pressure”.3 Upon release, 4 the author was summoned to court and was sentenced with a fine.5 He was also requested to sign a statement that he would never sell satellite dishes again; otherwise, he would receive a prison sentence. 2.2 However, the author continued with the sales. In March 2011, while the author was installing a satellite dish for a client, he was warned that the authorities were at his client’s door. The author escaped by jumping from the rooftop and running away on a motorcycle. After this event, the author stayed at his friend’s father’s home for seven months and then left the Islamic Republic of Iran on 24 November 2011.6 2.3 The author arrived in Denmark on 17 January 2012, without valid travel documents, and applied for asylum on 23 January 2012. He invoked the fear of persecution by the Iranian authorities upon return because he had been arrested for selling satellite dishes. However, the Danish Immigration Service denied his request on 31 August 2012. 2.4 On 16 December 2012, the author converted to Christianity. 7 He therefore appealed the decision of the Danish Immigration Service by invoking his conversion as an additional ground for fear of persecution in the Islamic Republic of Iran. 2.5 On 16 January 2013, the Danish Refugee Appeals Board denied his appeal because it considered that his conversion was not genuine. 8 The Board therefore concluded that the author had not demonstrated a risk of concrete and personal persecution if returned to his 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 2 In his asylum screening interview before the Danish Immigration Service on 7 August 2012, the author declared that they had been detained for four days because of some national holidays. No further details provided by the author. The father of the author’s friend paid the bail. The amount of the fine was 15 million Iranian rials. In his asylum screening interview of 7 August 2012, the author declared that he left the Islamic Republic of Iran lawfully, using a genuine national passport. He went to Thailand and then to Turkey, using his passport. He then used a false Israeli passport to travel from Turkey to Cyprus and back to Turkey, wherefrom he travelled to Denmark. However, he declared before the Refugee Appeals Board that a friend of a friend had obtained a passport for him. He submits a certificate of baptism dated 16 December 2012. During the proceedings before the Refugee Appeals Board, the author stated that he had not thought about converting for a long period prior to his conversion, but that a friend at the place where he lived had inspired him to convert, and his conversion had taken place immediately after that. In his initial communication to the Committee, the author declared that he had attended his first church service five months after his entry into Denmark, after having met an Iranian convert who introduced him to the teachings of Christianity. The Refugee Appeals Board noted that the author “has been unable to give even a rough account of the Christian festivals or present other basic information about Christianity, except that Jesus is the most important person”. The Board also noted the author’s declaration that only his friend and a couple of other persons knew about the conversion.