CAT/C/51/D/434/2010 Committee as an explanation for her continued stay in the State party, because, based on her medical condition, she was unfit to travel. 5.6 As to the main complainant’s role in the Quiets Church, the complainant maintains that he did not merely provide access to the basement of his store. In this regard, he refers to the letter of October 2009 of J. J. G., in which she states that she often attended church meetings held in the complainant’s basement; specifically, the Church met in the complainant’s house and basement during 2001 and 2004; and that he was present at church meetings during this time and was arrested in 2001 and 2004. The complainants also note that the fact that the complainant participated in the Quiets Church services and that he was persecuted for his affiliation with the Church and physically and mentally abused by the Chinese authorities, amounting to torture, is also supported by five Chinese residents in Australia, who confirm that the main complainant attended services of the Quiets Church in his basement in China and that he was arrested along with other church members in 2004. In addition, one of the statements confirms that in 2004 the complainant was detained by the Chinese authorities in the Gutian detention centre in Fujian province. In this connection and in the context of the complainant’s inability to provide documentary evidence in support of each and every statement he has made, the complainants point out that, according to the procedures and criteria for determining refugee status of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) under the Convention on the Status of Refugees, to require applicants to support their statements with documentary or other proof is rather an exception than the rule. 5.7 In light of the above, the complainants submit that the facts presented by the main complainant have been coherent, plausible and consistent. Evidence provided by others supports the information that the complainant has provided. Moreover, independent country information from relevant and reliable sources objectively supports claims of persecution in China based on underground Christianity. Therefore, his fear is well founded. 5.8 As to the State party’s submission that the complainant’s seven subsequent requests for ministerial intervention were fully considered and rejected due to lack of new evidence sufficient to meet the guidelines for ministerial consideration, the complainants refer to different letters of their fellow Christians submitted as part of the subsequent requests confirming that the complainant regularly attended the Quiets Church in his basement or home; that he was arrested in 2001 and 2004; and that the Quiets Church continued to meet in the complainant’s basement (after his departure for Australia) and met there in early 2009, during which time Church members were arrested by the authorities. In this connection, the complainants reiterate that there are warrants for the complainant’s arrest and detention and that he will be detained upon his return to China. 5.9 The complainants further maintain that the main complainant is a Christian and if returned to China, he would continue to practise Christianity as an active member of the Quiets church. This fact would put him at risk of further arrest and detention and, based on his past experience, of torture. The complainants also note that the fact that he has lived for a considerable period of time in the State party would be considered by the Chinese authorities as “alignment with the West” and thus would put him at additional risk. 5.10 The complainants submit that, in the course of the protection visa process, the main complainant submitted to the national authorities evidence, in the form of written statements by his fellow Christians, regarding religious persecution in China. The fact that the main complainant would be persecuted and tortured if returned to China is supported by his past experience, the arrest and imprisonment of fellow Christians in 2009, who met in the basement of his shop in China, and the fact that an arrest warrant for him has been issued. The complainant further provides excerpts from different reports and mass media publications concerning, inter alia, the plan of the Chinese authorities to abolish all 12