CEDAW/C/55/D/35/2011 6.8 With regard to the invocation by the author of article 12 of the Convention, rather than article 14, the State party reiterates that, just as the other provisions of the Convention, the article cannot be considered to have extraterritorial effect. The State party adds that there is no obligation under the Convention not to return aliens to countries in which health conditions are not in accordance with the Convention. 22 6.9 Lastly, the State party reiterates to the Committee that, should it declare the communication admissible, it should determine, on the merits, that the decision to return the author to Burundi does not constitute a violation of the Convention. Author’s comments on the State party’s additional observations 7.1 On 20 September 2012, the author submits that one of the reports used by the State party as background information on the situation in Burundi was dated 1 May 2010, 23 whereas the author escaped from events that took place from the middle of May 2010 (when her house was hit by a grenade) to the summer of 2010 (the election period). Consequently, the information used by the State party falls short of properly reflecting the author’s situation, including the massacre that took place in July 2010 in her home town and that targeted her and other members of the opposition in the area. The author reiterates that no relevant background information was used in her case before the Refugee Appeals Board. 7.2 Second, the author clarifies that the fact that she replied in her interview before the Refugee Appeals Board that she did not know her attackers 24 does not mean that she was approached only by coincidence, but rather that she did not know the identity of her aggressors. She reiterates that she was under the clear impression that her aggressors had participated in the violent attack against her town. After raping her, one of the offenders wanted to kill her, but another member of the group intervened, claiming that what they had done to her was “worse than death”. The men then allowed her to go. The author adds that that approach is a means of spreading terror among female members of the opposition, so as to deter further political activism. 7.3 The author also reiterates that, while she is unaware whether her attackers were members of the Imberakure militia, they were supporters of the Government of Burundi. She rejects the State party’s contention that she did not qualify the rape as politically motivated 25 and repeats that she has no doubt that the offenders were supporters of the Government. 7.4 Regarding domestic remedies, the author admits that she did not invoke the Convention itself before domestic jurisdictions, given that the pleadings mainly aimed at clarifying facts and determining the author’s credibility. Nonetheless, __________________ 22 23 24 25 13-43086 The State party refers to the European Court of Human Rights judgement in N. v. the United Kingdom, application No. 26565/05, in which the Court held that health-care considerations in a deportation case did not entail a violation of article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The State party holds that it would a fortiori not be the case for the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, which does not deal with removal to torture or other serious threats to the life and security of the person, whether directly or indirectly. Human Rights Watch, “We’ll tie you up and shoot you”, 1 May 2010. The author claims that the Board’s question was deliberately confusing and was phrased as follows: “Did you know them [the attackers] or were they there by coincidence?”. See para. 6.2 above. 11/20