CEDAW/C/73/D/94/2015
torture or to other inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment if returned to the
country of origin. 4
4.6 The Refugee Appeals Board had at no time excluded the possibility that, owing
to generalized violence in a given country, the general security situation of that
country might be of such a serious nature that it would constitute a violation of article
3 of the European Convention on Human Rights to send the asylum seeker back to
the country and, for that reason alone, the asylum seeker would satisfy the conditions
for being granted residence under article 7 of the Aliens Act.
4.7 On admissibility, the State party is of the view that the author has failed to
establish a prima facie case for the purposes of admissibility before the Committee.
Accordingly, the communication has not been sufficiently substantiated and it was
not established that she would be exposed to a real, personal and foreseea ble risk of
any serious form of gender-based violence in Somalia. The communication should
therefore be declared inadmissible as manifestly ill-founded under article 4 (2) of the
Optional Protocol.
4.8 The State party recalls the author’s claim that her deportation would constitute
a breach of articles 3, 5 and 16 (b) of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms
of Discrimination against Women, because she feared being killed or forcibly married
to an Al-Shabaab member on her return to Somalia, and, in addition, that it would
constitute a breach of article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights and article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. It also recalls her
claim that Al-Shabaab members are known to behave violently against people who
disobey them and to consider failed asylum seekers as traitors; for that reason alone,
she may face torture. The State party further recalls that the author has claimed that
the alleged inconsistency in her statements was caused by the pressure she faced. The
State party notes that the author submitted that Danish lawyers frequently complain
that the Refugee Appeals Board denies applications on the basis of minor
discrepancies among the multiple interviews conducted by the Immigration Se rvice,
inevitably concluding that the asylum seeker is lying.
4.9 The State party refers to the alleged secret agreement between Denmark and
Somalia (see para 2.4 above), the information provided by the Office of the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees regarding the return of asylum seekers to
the part of Somalia from which the author originates and the comments of the Asylum
Research Consultancy and the Dutch Council for Refugees on the country of origin
information report of the European Asylum Support Office, published by the Asylum
Research Consultancy and the Council on 21 November 2014, in which it is
confirmed that central Somalia is still very much under the control of Al -Shabaab.
The State party acknowledges the author’s claim that the Board overlooked the fact
that Galguduud was under the control of Al-Shabaab.
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The State party cites the judgment of 17 July 2008 of the European Court of Human Rights in
N.A. v. United Kingdom (application No. 25904/07), indicating that the mere possibility of ill treatment because of an unstable situation or a general situation of violence in the applicant ’s
country of origin would not in itself amount to a breach of article 3 of the European Convention
on Human Rights should the asylum seeker be returned to his or her country of origin. It
remarked that the Court in this case assessed that the deterioration of the security situation in a
country did not independently create a risk for all persons of a specific ethnic group returning to
that country. The Court indicated that, while it had never exclude d the possibility that a general
situation of violence would be of such a level of intensity as to entail that any removal would be
in breach of article 3, such an approach would only be pursued when there was a real risk of ill treatment by the mere virtue of the individual’s presence. The Court reiterated that reasoning in
its judgment of 20 January 2009 in F.H. v. Sweden (application No. 32621/06). Applying that
reasoning, the Court, in its judgment of 28 June 2011 in Sufi and Elmi v. United Kingdom
(application Nos. 8319/07 and 11449/07), found that the removal of applicants who were Somali
nationals to Mogadishu would be contrary to article 3.
5/11