CAT/C/60/D/662/2015 professional activities. After running into trouble with the Iranian regime, Energy Venture had to discontinue its operations. 5.2 The complainant recalls that the Swiss authorities have said that his statements about the Iranian authorities’ suspicions of espionage and their arrests and interrogations of the complainant are not credible. However, the Swiss authorities have not contested the fact that he worked for an oil company that had to discontinue its operations, nor the fact that his father worked for the previous regime. 30 He explains that his claims concerning the suspicion of espionage and his arrests and interrogations were not reproduced in the communication submitted to the Committee because he was unable to provide any new evidence on those points. Moreover, those events occurred 23 years ago, and the Federal Administrative Court handed down a final decision on the matter over six years ago. As a result, the amount of time that has passed since domestic remedies were exhausted was unreasonably prolonged, so much so that the consideration of his complaint by the Committee would have been extraordinarily difficult. The complainant states that the fact that his father worked for the previous regime and is still banned from leaving the country shows that he belongs to a family that the Iranian Government considers to be part of the opposition.31 5.3 The complainant contends that the State party’s objections regarding his political activities in Switzerland and his conversion are unfounded. In the first place, the complainant had no reason to apply for asylum before 2007. He fled the Islamic Republic of Iran immediately after he had problems with the secret police in 1991. Since he found employment in India, he had no need to apply for asylum there. Then, he met his former partner, who was Swiss, and obtained a residence permit in Switzerland. It is entirely understandable that the complainant preferred to take the direct route of obtaining a residence permit that would allow him to reside and work in Switzerland rather than embark on an asylum application procedure during which he would have been placed in a refugee reception centre and would not have been able to work for some time. The complainant emphasizes that, after he fled in 1991, he never returned to the Islamic Republic of Iran, even during the time, between 2002 and 2006, when he had a Swiss residence permit. The question of his returning to the Islamic Republic of Iran arose when his residence permit was not renewed in 2006. The complainant filed an application for asylum at that time, when the fear of having to return to the Islamic Republic of Iran and be exposed to persecution devastated him, so much so that he was hospitalized in a psychiatric clinic for two months. 5.4 The complainant reaffirms that, at his first hearing, on 24 September 2007, he stated that he had a well-founded fear of being persecuted in the Islamic Republic of Iran for political and religious reasons. When asked why he had fled his country, the complainant first replied that he had left because of political problems 32 and then mentioned his conversion to Christianity. It was only near the end of the hearing, when he was asked if he had other reasons for not wanting to return to the Islamic Republic of Iran, that he mentioned that he would like to be near his children in Ticino. This should make it clear to the Swiss authorities that there are other reasons that should preclude expulsion from Switzerland, such as a person’s state of health or the fact that a person’s family or social network is in Switzerland. 5.5 The complainant asserts that he did not become politically active suddenly or for no reason; rather, it was because he himself is affected by a grave human rights violation committed by the Iranian regime — the violation of freedom of religion. His political activities should therefore be considered in the light of his conversion to Christianity. In the course of his participation in demonstrations and in posts on his website, the complainant has placed emphasis on denouncing the absence of freedoms (freedom of expression, freedom of religion) in the Islamic Republic of Iran. As to the question of the authenticity of his conversion, he points out that he converted to Christianity while in India, long before 30 31 32 8 Decision of the Federal Office for Migration of 10 July 2008; judgment of the Federal Administrative Court of 16 December 2008, consid. 4.1. Thus, contrary to the opinion of the State party, this case is comparable to X and Z v. Finland. “Ho lasciato il mio Paese per problemi politici”, transcript of the hearing of 24 September 2007. GE.17-12101