CCPR/C/121/D/2585/2015 Annex Joint Opinion of Committee members Mauro Politi and José Santos Pais (dissenting) 1. We regret not being able to share the decision reached by the majority of the Committee that the removal of the authors and their three children to Bulgaria will not violate their rights under article 7 of the Covenant. 2. In the present case, both the authors and their children had a most traumatic experience when entering Bulgaria in 2013 (para. 2.2), where they were detained, subjected to hunger, harassment and degrading treatment, and were even forced to resort to a hunger strike to be released. They were then moved to a refugee camp, where they could not move freely due to the overwhelming presence and fear of the police, who allegedly beat one of the authors’ children repeatedly (para. 2.3). One of the authors even witnessed the murder of an Iraqi person and was harassed by Bulgarian nationals because he was a foreigner (para. 2.5). 3. The authors, as a result, now experience increased symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and both of them are receiving medical treatment for several ailments (high blood pressure, heart condition, problems with metabolism and a herniated disc). The authors’ children, already deeply scarred and traumatized by the civil war in the Syrian Arab Republic, have also been seriously affected by their experience in Bulgaria. One of them has even undergone extensive psychological treatment to overcome the trauma he has consequently suffered (para. 2.7). The State party acknowledged all these allegations (para. 2.8). 4. And now, the authors and their children will have to move again, from Denmark to Bulgaria, the third change of country in a very short period of time. 5. It is doubtful whether the authors, and particularly their children, besides facing difficult economic and social conditions upon their return to Bulgaria, will be guaranteed access in practice to the medical assistance they, and especially their children, so desperately need. Not to mention that, vulnerable as they already are, they will all certainly be exposed to homelessness, destitution and lack of personal safety. Moreover, the children will face difficult integration conditions, especially in regard to access to education, as rightly acknowledged by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (para. 3.2). 6. On the other hand, it does not seem that the State party has given sufficient weight to the real and personal risk the authors and their children will face, once deported. 1 In particular, the evaluation of whether the removed individuals are likely to be exposed to conditions constituting cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment in violation of article 7 of the Covenant should have been based not only on the assessment of the general conditions in the receiving country, but also on the individual circumstances of the persons in question. These circumstances include vulnerability-increasing factors relating to such persons, as in the present case, which may transform a general situation that is tolerable for most removed individuals to intolerable for some other individuals. 7. The evaluation by the State party should also have taken into account elements from the past experience of the authors and their children in Bulgaria, which indeed underscore the special risks they are likely to be facing and will render their return to that country a particularly traumatic and, unfortunately, renewed experience for them. 2 1 2 16 See, for example, communications No. 1763/2008, Pillai v. Canada, Views adopted on 25 March 2011, paras. 11.2 and 11.4; and No. 2409/2014, Ali and Ali Mohamad v. Denmark, Views adopted on 29 March 2016, para.7.8. See communication No. 2681/2015, Y.A.A. and F.H.M. v. Denmark, Views adopted on 10 March 2017, para. 7.7.