CAT/C/61/D/687/2015 Factual background 2.1 The complainant is married with four children. He used to run an air conditioning and refrigeration shop in Gulberg, in Pakistan. He had three employees, one of whom, W.B., was a Christian. Z.A.H. describes himself as a moderate Muslim who respects all religions. 2.2 The complainant explains that in his neighbourhood there was a mosque that was a hotspot for the banned Sunni extremist group Sipah e Sahaba. In May 2010, that group started campaigning against Christians, forcing people either to convert to Islam or to pay jizya.2 W.B. became a target of that group. On 15 May 2010, members of the group visited W.B.’s home. They severely beat him and his family members and then destroyed the house and belongings and threatened to kill him. On that same day, at 8.30 p.m., W.B. came to the complainant to seek refuge. 3 The complainant advised W.B. to go to the police, but he was scared. The same night, the complainant, together with some of his employees, visited W.B.’s house; by that time the Sipah e Sahaba group was gone. 2.3 On 16 May 2010, the complainant went to the mosque and requested the members of Sipah e Sahaba to stop the attacks against W.B. However, the group turned against the complainant, accused him of betraying Islam, and threatened that they would register a case against him. 2.4 On 8 August 2010, 15 people of the Sipah e Sahaba group went to the complainant’s shop, with iron rods, bats and other weapons. They brutally beat W.B. The complainant tried to help him but did not succeed. The complainant was accused of blasphemy for helping Christians and was brutally beaten. The group threatened the complainant, saying that he was liable to die. Both the complainant and W.B. were hospitalized. The complainant left the hospital the same day and W.B. stayed there for a month. 2.5 On 9 August 2010, the complainant reported the attacks, at the Gulberg police station. The police sub-inspector made derogatory remarks against Christians and told the complainant that he was in big trouble because, according to sharia law, he had blasphemed against the religion, and that the punishment for such conduct was death. He warned the complainant to stay away from the media, as any reference to his case there would cause him additional problems. On 16 August 2010, the complainant submitted another complaint, to the Senior Superintendent of Police in Lahore, who did not take any action. The complainant informs the Committee that the police refused to register his case against the group, which has the full support of the Taliban and the police in Pakistan. 2.6 After the incidents, W.B. left the complainant’s shop and went to live away. In midSeptember 2010, W.B. visited the complainant’s home. 4 They were having dinner when four people with green turbans showed up to kidnap and kill W.B. They both managed to escape to a safe location. 2.7 Following that incident, the complainant was declared a blasphemer and a kafir (non-believer) by the Sipah e Sahaba group, as he had sheltered and employed a Christian. He and his family were threatened with death. 2.8 The complainant moved his family to a safe location with some relatives and requested a visa for Canada, which was issued on 8 October 2010. On 10 February 2011, he arrived in Canada and applied for refugee protection in Toronto in May 2011. Following the rejection of his application on 9 August 2013 by the Refugee Protection Division of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, he applied for judicial review, which was declined by the Federal Court on 11 December 2013. On 8 December 2014, the complainant’s application for pre-removal risk assessment was also rejected. 2.9 On 4 June 2015, the Canada Border Services Agency informed the complainant that his deportation was scheduled for 23 June 2015. On 18 June 2015, the complainant applied to the Canada Border Services Agency for deferral of his removal, which was denied on 22 June 2015. 2 3 4 2 The complainant indicates that jizya is a forced tax to be paid by non-Muslims to live in Islamic areas. The complainant does not specify where W.B. came to. The complainant does not specify the date.