CAT/C/34/D/226/2003
Page 6
to which torture was frequent and a matter of routine in Bangladesh. She also
submitted three certificates dated 20 and 22 November 2001, and 22 February 2002,
respectively, showing that the post-traumatic stress syndrome had grown worse and
that there was a serious risk of suicide. One certificate showed that her daughter had
nightmares and flashbacks of the incident in which their home was vandalized in
Bangladesh, and that her emotional development had been impaired as a result.
2.8
By its decision of 25 February 2002, the Aliens Appeals Board considered that
torture and rape were not attributable to the State but to the isolated action of some
policemen, that the complainant had been working for a legal party and had been a
common member without noticeable influence, ant that because of the political
change in Bangladesh there were no reasonable grounds for believing that she would
be subjected to arrest and torture by the police if returned to her country.
2.9
As attachments to the new applications for a resident permit on humanitarian
grounds, filed on 20 May and 1 July 2002, the complainant submitted additional
medical evidence on her declining mental health and that of her daughter. The
medical certificates, dated 19 and 22 April 2002, and 7 May 2002, showed that the
complainant’s mental health deteriorated after the decision of the Aliens Board. She
suffered from a dissociate state of mind, experienced a feeling of being present in the
trauma she had been subjected to. She displayed increasing suicidal tendencies. Her
daughter showed symptoms of serious traumatisation. On 26 May 2002, the
complainant tried to commit suicide, and was admitted to the psychiatric ward of St.
Goran’s Hospital in Stockholm on the same day, for compulsory psychiatric
treatment. On 26 March 2002, a psychiatrist certified that she suffered from a serious
mental disturbance possibly from psychosis. The compulsory psychiatric treatment
was based on the risk of suicide. According to another expert, the complainant’s
mental health further deteriorated after her release from hospital on 6 August 2002.
She could no longer care for her daughter, who had been placed with another family.
The expert suggested, however, that she be placed on ambulatory treatment, because
while in hospital the complainant’s mental health had worsened. As regard to the
complainant’s daughter, the medical certificate stated that she had fallen into a serious
and threatening state and that she would need a long period of psychotherapeutic
treatment.