CAT/C/49/D/435/2010 State party’s observations on admissibility and merits 4.1 By note verbale of 4 May 2011, the State party submitted its observations on the admissibility and merits. It notes that the complainant’s application for a permit to stay was assessed under the 2005 Aliens Act, which was partially amended in January 2010. The Migration Board, thus, carries out the initial examination, whereas appeals against its decisions are examined by one of the three existing migration courts and the Migration Court of Appeal is the final instance. 4.2 The State party explains that an initial interview with the complainant was held on 22 September 2008, during which he stated that he had worked as a journalist for a newspaper called Tanzania Daima in Dar es Salaam. Because of an article he wrote in early August 2008, he was at risk of being sentenced to imprisonment and tortured if returned to his country of origin. He was a member of an opposition political party called Chadema. In April 2002 he had been arrested and tortured. He had been released at the end of June 2002 and since then, until 2004, when the charges against him were dropped, he had to report to the police authorities twice a week. A second interview was held on 4 February 2009. 4.3 On 5 June 2009, the Migration Board rejected the complainant’s application. In its decision, the Board referred to the section “Freedom of speech and press” in the United States Department of State’s annual human rights reports for the United Republic of Tanzania from 2006 to 2009, according to which the freedom of expression as a right is encompassed in the Constitution of Tanzania; the President has publicly expressed his support for freedom of the press, journalists are generally able to publish articles and the authorities allow the opposition free access to the media; and the political party Chadema’s newspaper Tanzania Daima is published daily. The Board also noted that in addition, according to the reports by the Committee to Protect Journalists–Tanzania, the complainant was a correspondent for the daily newspaper Mwananchi and was accused of “contempt of parliament” after he claimed in an article, dated 7 April 2001, that some proposed reforms would benefit the party in Government. The complainant was arrested and interrogated,4 but was released without charge several hours later. However, he was threatened with further legal action. A prosecutor later stated that he had been instructed by the Parliament to prosecute the complainant, however, the Media Council of Tanzania and other defenders of freedom of expression raised objections, which prevented further charges against the complainant. The same account of events was provided also by the report “State of the Media in Southern Africa” and by the International Press Institute. Consequently, the Board established that the complainant’s situation was not such that a residence permit should be issued on the grounds of especially distressing circumstances. It raised doubts as to whether the complainant had indeed been imprisoned for two months in 2002, as well as observed that since 2002 and, in particular, after 2007, when the complainant was banned from reporting on any business performed by the members of the Government, he had not been prevented from working as a journalist and had written a number of articles. Finally, the Board noted that it was extremely peculiar that the newspaper wherein allegedly his political article of 3 August 2008 was published was still operating and had not faced any legal consequences. 4.4 On 22 June 2009, the complainant appealed against the negative decision of the Migration Board to the Migration Court. On 7 May 2010, the Court held a hearing and concluded that it found no reasons to question the fact that the complainant was briefly detained in 2002 or that he was banned from his profession by the authorities in 2007. The Court decided that despite those events, the complainant had continued to work as a journalist in his home country; in addition, according to the content of his 2008 visa 4 4 It appears from the case file that the events referred to are the events of 2002.