CAT/C/58/D/608/2014 activism. When asked if he feared harm in Sri Lanka for any other reason, he did not provide any other reason. On 18 January 2013, the complainant filed a written submission to the Tribunal arguing that he had a well-founded fear of persecution in Sri Lanka due to his Tamil ethnicity, his political opinions, which opposed TMVP and the Government of Sri Lanka in supporting LTTE, and as a failed asylum seeker. On 1 May 2013, the Tribunal conducted a second hearing, at which the complainant stated that he feared persecution by the Sri Lankan authorities due to his connection with LTTE, since he allegedly worked for it in 2004 for about six months. He argued that he had not referred to those allegations previously because he had feared that he would be put in jail or that the Australian authorities would disclose the information to their Sri Lankan counterparts. 2.10 On 16 July 2013, the Refugee Review Tribunal dismissed the complainant’s appeal and confirmed the decision not to grant him asylum or complementary protection. The Tribunal referred in detail to the statements given by the complainant during the hearings and to his written submissions and found the inconsistences in his allegations to be significant regarding the alleged visit of TMVP members to his family home in March 2012, and the incidents between TMVP members and people in his village. Accordingly, it concluded that it could not accept his statement that men allegedly from TMVP came to his family home looking for him in March 2012. Moreover, it found that he had not been subjected to extortion or other threats by TMVP or anyone else from the time when he returned to Sri Lanka from Qatar. Likewise, it did not accept the complainant’s explanation for not having disclosed the allegation concerning his alleged involvement with LTTE earlier in the proceedings and considered that if he had in fact worked for LTTE, that would be a significant reason for fearing harm on his return to Sri Lanka. The Tribunal pointed out that the second hearing was not the resumption of an adjourned hearing and, accordingly, the complainant would have understood that his last opportunity to present his claims was before the conclusion of the first hearing. The Tribunal thus did not accept the allegation as true and found that the complainant had never worked for or otherwise been involved with LTTE. Against that background, the Tribunal accepted only that the complainant was a Tamil who lived and worked in northern Sri Lanka; that he had faced harassment and discrimination in the past by the Sinhalese community in his home area; and that he had left Sri Lanka in breach of the relevant Sri Lankan departure laws. 2.11 In its decision, the Refugee Review Tribunal took detailed note of the UNHCR Eligibility Guidelines for Assessing the International Protection Needs of Asylum Seekers from Sri Lanka (21 December 2012), reports from States and NGOs about the human rights situation in Sri Lanka, in particular concerning the treatment of Tamils by the authorities, the situation of failed asylum seekers and returnees, the consequences of breaching Sri Lankan departure laws, conditions in prison in Sri Lanka, and the situation of TMVP and the Karuna Group.3 It concluded that the complainant would not be at risk of persecution or torture based solely on the fact that he was a Tamil from the Eastern Province and a failed asylum seeker. It also concluded that he would not be perceived as a political opponent by TMVP because he had refused to provide them with a truck or because his home village 3 4 The Refugee Review Tribunal cites, in particular, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, “Sri Lanka: Treatment of Tamil returnees to Sri Lanka, including failed refugee applicants; information on specific asylum cases, including the Tamil asylum-seeker boat that stopped in Togo, the return of Sri Lankan asylum seekers from Australia in 2012, and any cases of voluntary repatriation (August 2011January 2013)”, 12 February 2013; Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, “Sri Lanka: The Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal (TMVP) and Karuna factions; their relationship with each other; reports concerning their treatment of Sinhalese and Tamil citizens; whether they are still active as paramilitary groups”, 17 February 2012; Freedom from Torture, “Sri Lankan Tamils tortured on return from the UK”, 13 September 2012; and International Crisis Group, “Sri Lanka’s North I: The denial of minority rights: Asia Report No. 219”, 16 March 2012.