CAT/C/49/D/416/2010 The facts as presented by the complainant 2.1 The complainant is a Chinese citizen who claims to be a regular practitioner and leader of Falun Gong, which he joined in 1995 when he moved to Fuzhou, China. He is married and has two sons, still living in China. According to the complainant, in 1996 he returned to his home village of Cuihou, where he began organizing a local group to practice Falun Gong. He claims that he instructed new practitioners and had a leadership role. The complainant stresses that when the Chinese authorities made Falun Gong illegal in 1999, his Falun Gong materials were confiscated by the police, who threatened to close the clothing business he had opened in his home village. Since then he continued to practice Falun Gong secretly with others. 2.2 The complainant claims that, on 15 August 2001, he was arrested and detained by the police in Fuqing City Detention Centre because he was a Falun Gong group leader and had organized Falun Gong practitioners to protest against the detention of one of their members. The complainant states that he was held in detention for 16 days, and was interrogated and tortured nearly every day. On one occasion he was tortured and interrogated for four hours continuously. He claims that he was handcuffed to iron bars and suffered repeated electric shocks on his back. He also states that he was burned with cigarettes on the back of his neck and that the handcuffs cut into his wrists and hands. The complainant claims that after his release he was under police surveillance and therefore went into hiding. He decided to leave China on 12 December 2004, after hearing that a former fellow Falun Gong practitioner from his village had revealed under torture his name as his Falun Gong teacher. He obtained a legal passport and visa to go to Australia by using family connections. He arrived in Australia on 12 December 2004 and came to Sydney on 17 December 2004. The complainant claims that he left China to avoid arrest and persecution, and continued to practice Falun Gong when he arrived in Australia. 2.3 On 20 January 2005, the complainant applied for a Protection Visa under the Australian migration legislation. His application was refused by an immigration department officer on 7 March 2005 without an interview. Subsequently the Refugee Review Tribunal, on 23 May 2005, wrote to advise him that it was unable to make a favorable decision on the information in its possession and invited him to give evidence at a hearing on 22 June 2005. The complainant did not receive the invitation for the hearing and, on 22 June 2005, in his absence, the Tribunal confirmed the decision of the immigration department not to grant him a Protection Visa and found there was a lack of evidence of his practice of Falun Gong as well as a lack of details in his claims. It also pointed out the fact that the passport with which the complainant came to Australia was issued some two and a half years after his alleged detention. 2.4 On 12 October 2005, the complainant lodged an appeal to the Federal Magistrates Court against the decision of the Refugee Review Tribunal. In the appeal he complained about the fact that he was unaware of the invitation to the hearing and that he had no chance to provide information about his Falun Gong practice. The appeal was dismissed on 13 March 2007, since the Court found that the Tribunal had complied with its statutory obligations in the making of its decision and that the decision was not affected by jurisdictional error. In July 2007, the complainant left Sydney for Perth for work reasons and was arrested there, for overstaying his visa, on 11 February 2009. On 18 February 2009, he introduced a request for ministerial intervention under sections 417 and 48B of the Migration Act, on his own. On 13 March 2009, he was transferred to the Villawood Immigration Detention Centre in Sydney and on 28 April 2009 his request was refused by the Ministerial Intervention Unit, which found that the request did not comply with the Minister’s Guidelines for assessment of such requests. 2.5 In May 2009, the complainant decided to seek the assistance of the nongovernmental organization Balmain for Refugees. On 14 July 2009, the organization sent, 3