CAT/C/61/D/720/2015
information. The State party refers to the Committee’s jurisprudence and recalls that the
existence of a general risk of violence does not constitute a sufficient ground for
determining that a particular person would be in danger of being subjected to torture upon
return to a country; additional grounds must exist to show that the individual concerned
would be personally at risk. 23 It maintains that the complainant has not established the
existence of additional grounds to show that he is at a foreseeable, real and personal risk of
torture if returned to Sri Lanka.
Complainant’s comments on the State party’s observations
5.1
On 16 November 2016, the complainant’s representative submitted his comments on
the State party’s observations. He highlights the fact that the State party acknowledges that
the representative of the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection recognized that
the complainant’s detention in 2009 was persecutory, yet argues that, at the time of the
decision, the cause of the persecution no longer existed. According to the complainant, it
follows from that persecution that he had good cause to flee Sri Lanka and seek asylum. He
disputes the State party’s argument that he does not have a profile of significance and that
the cessation of open hostilities in May 2009 between the Government of Sri Lanka and
LTTE means that there is no danger.
5.2
The complainant submits that the State party’s authorities accepts that he was beaten
after the bomb blast in 2009 and that he was detained and beaten because of the bomb blast,
yet it failed to accept that the detention and beating occurred because he was suspected of
being involved in the bomb blast, more specifically, that he was suspected of being actively
engaged in violent LTTE actions. He argues that, while he, himself, did not have any links
to LTTE, in the minds of the security forces, he was linked to LTTE in 2009. He claims that
there is a real danger that the authorities in Sri Lanka continue to suspect him of links to
LTTE and he will become a target of torture during interrogation as a result. The
complainant submits that the fact that he was tortured in the past is a good indicator that he
will be tortured in the future.
5.3
The complainant argues that the reasoning of the representative of the Minister for
Immigration and Border Protection, based on the country information, that people were
leaving Sri Lanka for economic reasons and because of persecution, cannot be applied to in
his case to dismiss the concrete personal claims being made, especially since there were no
significant credibility findings against him. 24 The findings affirm that the complainant was
persecuted and subsequently fled Sri Lanka. Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that the
general country information to the contrary no longer applies to his case. The same goes for
the argument about the massive returns to Sri Lanka. His case should be assessed on its
own merits and not compared to cases that do not share the same characteristics.
5.4
The complainant claims that, while the representative of the Minister acknowledged
that he had suffered persecution, it was concluded that the original reasons for the
persecution no longer existed, therefore the complainant would no longer be persecuted for
those reasons on his return. He argues that the decision of the State party’s authorities’
attempts to exclude him from any other persecutory profile, but at no point does it attempt
to consider whether, as a result of past persecution, there is an existing profile that would
place him in real danger of torture or inhuman treatment. He states that the assessment of
the non-refoulement obligations was “little more than ticking a few legal boxes: there was
no substantive consideration of the obligations”.
5.5
Furthermore, the complainant challenges the reasoning of the Refugee Review
Tribunal, which accepted that he had been detained and beaten but did not find it credible
that he could not explain how the beating may have affected his memory. He claims that the
Tribunal’s credibility findings against him are unreasonable because if it accepted that he
had been beaten, it should understand that it is likely that he would have some symptoms of
23
24
See communication No. 83/1997, G.R.B v. Sweden, Views adopted on 15 May 1998, para. 6.3.
The complainant quotes the representative of the Minister: “I found no reason to doubt the credibility
of the applicant. His information remained consistent through his entry and PV interviews and I have
proceeded on the basis that he is generally credible.”
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