CAT/C/51/D/426/2010
dissidents located abroad.3 Government officials frequently torture suspected activists.4 The
complainant concludes that, considering “the political background of her family, her
ethnicity, her own political activism and her long absence from Ethiopia, there is indeed a
high risk that the complainant might be arrested, questioned and detained upon her arrival
in Ethiopia”.
3.2
By letter dated 9 September 2010, the complainant submitted a psychologist’s
medical report stating that she is undergoing psychological treatment in Switzerland due to
severe depression. The complainant further asserts that “her current mental condition is,
inter alia, a product of the traumatizing experiences she was confronted with in her home
country”.
3.3
The complainant considers that she has exhausted domestic legal remedies. She filed
an appeal of the decision by which the Federal Office for Migration denied the second
asylum claim on 14 May 2010, and on 4 June 2010, the Federal Administrative Tribunal
rejected the appeal.5 The complainant was ordered to leave Switzerland; but at the time of
submission of the present communication, her deportation date had not been set.
State party’s observations on admissibility and on the merits
4.1
On 23 November 2010, the State party submitted its observations on the merits of
the communication. The State party recalls the facts of the complaint and notes the
complainant’s argument that she would run a personal, real and serious risk of being
subjected to torture if returned to Ethiopia, because of her political activities with the OLF.
The State party considers that the complainant does not present any new elements that
would call into question the decisions of the Swiss asylum authorities, which were made
following a detailed examination of the case, but rather disputes the assessment of the facts
and evidence by them. The State party maintains that the deportation of the complainant to
Ethiopia would not constitute a violation of the Convention by Switzerland.
4.2
The State party considers that, according to article 3 of the Convention, State parties
are prohibited from expelling, returning or extraditing a person to another State where there
exist substantial grounds for believing that he or she would be subjected to torture. To
determine the existence of such grounds, the competent authorities must take into account
all relevant considerations, including, where applicable, the existence in the State
3
4
5
4
The complainant cites Human Rights Watch, One Hundred Ways of Putting Pressure (2010).
Available from www.hrw.org/en/node/89126/section7.
The complainant cites the United States of America Department of State, 2009 Country Reports on
Human Rights Practices: Ethiopia (March 2010); Amnesty International, Ethiopia: Prisoners of
Conscience on Trial for Treason: Opposition Party Leaders, Human Rights Defenders, and
Journalists (May 2006); Human Rights Watch, “Suppressing dissent: human rights abuses and
political repression in Ethiopia’s Oromia region” (9 May 2005).
In its decision, the Federal Administrative Tribunal cast doubt upon the new documents produced by
the complainant. It noted, for example, that the undated declaration from the Oromo Parliamentarians
Council, purporting to confirm the 2005 arrest of the complainant’s father, contained a section with
numerous spelling and syntax errors, and did not state the name of the secretary who allegedly signed
it. The declaration of Abiyot Shiferaw, a member of the federal Ethiopian parliament, lacked
probative value because it stated that the complainant’s father was arrested in 2006, and not, as the
complainant had alleged, in 2005. The additional photographs presented by the complainant did not
reveal any circumstances that would establish a risk of State persecution directed at the complainant.