CAT/C/54/D/491/2012 Mecha Tulema, a welfare association for the Oromo community whose members were sympathizers of OLF. 2.2 In May 2004, all the participants in a meeting organized by Mecha Tulema were arrested and detained. The complainant did not participate in the meeting. She claims that when she went to visit one of her friends, A.G., who was detained in a police station, she was beaten and kicked by police officers and kept in a detention cell for 25 hours. The next morning, an Oromo-speaking police officer asked her why she was there. When she explained to him what had happened and that she had just brought food for a friend, she was released. She and other Oromo students later attended the court hearings concerning the student detainees. According to the complainant, the detained students were charged with inciting an armed uprising and being members of OLF. 2.3 The complainant states that later, at a funeral, she met the same officer who had detained. He asked her to show him her identity document and told her that he knew that she was a member of OLF. She states that she ran away in fear. Later, she learned that her friend A.G. had been killed and she decided that she had to leave Ethiopia. 2.4 In December 2006, she travelled to Kuwait, where she lived and worked as a domestic worker until July 2007. On 28 July 2007, her employers went to Switzerland on vacation and took her with them. Four days after her arrival in Switzerland, she ran away from her employers, who treated her badly. She was arrested by the Swiss police and taken to the Reception Centre in Vallorbe, where she requested asylum on 2 August 2007. She claims that her parents had informed her that the Ethiopian authorities were always going to her home asking for her. 2.5 On 17 September 2007, the Federal Migration Office refused her application for asylum. The complainant appealed to the Federal Administrative Court. On 12 October 2010, the Court dismissed her appeal, stating that she had given contradicting and vague information, in particular regarding her membership of OLF and Mecha Tulema, since she had first stated that she was an active member and later, that she was a sympathizer. The Court further stated that the photographs she submitted and the fact that she was Oromo did not prove that she was active within the opposition or would be at risk of torture or persecution if returned to her country of origin. 2.6 On 17 November 2010, the complainant filed a second asylum request before the Federal Migration Office on the basis of her political activities with OLF in the State party. She claimed that, in addition to her activities before leaving Ethiopia, since her arrival in Switzerland she had been an active member of the Swiss branch of OLF and had participated in most of its meetings and events. In support of her claims, she provided two letters issued by the European Regional Office of OLF, dated 25 September 2007 and 21 April 2009, and a letter issued by OLF-Switzerland, dated 1 December 2010, in which it was stated that she was an active member of the organization.1 She claimed that photographs showing her participating in events of OLF-Switzerland were published on the website of Oromia Times. 2.7 The complainant was invited to an asylum interview on 22 December 2010. Despite her request to have the interview conducted in Affaan-Oromo, it was in Amharic because the Federal Migration Office did not have Oromo interpreters.2 She asserted that she 1 2 The complainant also submitted to the Committee an affidavit dated 24 January 2012, issued by the European Regional Office of OLF. The Committee notes that the complainant submitted a request, dated 17 December 2010, for an Affaan-Oromo interpreter, in which she also mentioned that she was fluent in Amharic. On 20 December 2010, the BFM informed the complainant that it did not have an Affaan-Oromo interpreter. 3