CCPR/C/115/D/2474/2014 ground for refugee status. The author filed an appeal before the Board on 8 September 2009. In May 2010, the author informed the authorities that he had converted to Christianity and asked the Board to consider his statement that he would be persecuted and possibly killed upon return to Afghanistan if it became known that he is a Christian. 4.2 On 22 March 2011, the Board, consisting of three members, held a formal hearing on the complaint. The author and his counsel were present and had ample opportunity to respond to and comment on questions and other forms of intervention by the Board members. The Chair of the Board must be a lawyer by training and must also be qualified to serve as a judge in the public courts. Other Board members are lay persons recruited from a range of disciplines and are nominated by non-governmental organizations, among others. On 5 April 2011, the Board decided, by a vote of two to one, to deny the appeal. The majority, which included the Chair, found that it had not been established with the requisite degree of probability that the author had a genuine Christian belief and was therefore not in danger if returned to Afghanistan. The Board’s majority reasoned that the author: appeared to have a very low level of reflection about the reasons for his alleged conversion. … [H]e was repeatedly asked to explain the background to his decision to convert from Islam to Christianity. As the reason for his conversion, the [author] stated that he was tired of his father nagging him to pray, fast and read the Koran, and that things are much freer in Christianity. In the majority’s view, this reason for converting appears to be very superficial. The [author] was also asked to explain how he had assessed the consequences of converting. The [author’s] statement that he had given his heart to Jesus and that he accepted that he could be killed does not, in the majority’s opinion, give the impression that the [author] has actually considered the consequences of converting. Reference is made in this context to the above account of the status of Islam in Afghan society and what consequences the break with Islam that a conversion represents would actually have for a Muslim. That the [author] informed his father that he had converted to stop his father constantly nagging him to pray and read the Koran seems to be very superficial, in the majority’s opinion. That the [author] has not thought about what consequences his conversion could have for his family, both practically and emotionally, strengthens the majority in its view that the appellant has not genuinely converted. The minority found that the author did have some knowledge of Christianity and that the areas in which he lacked knowledge could be due to language issues and the fact that the author was a relatively new convert. The minority also noted that the author had enrolled in a course to learn more and that individuals in the Christian community could vouch for him. The minority further found that internal relocation in Afghanistan was not possible because the author would risk persecution anywhere in his home country because of his conversion. 4.3 At the author’s request, the Board twice reviewed its decision in 2011 and concluded each time that there was no ground for reversal. In its decision dated 15 December 2011, the Board reasoned, in response to the author’s claim that it had not applied the correct standard of proof, that the phrase “sufficiently substantiated” indicates that the assessment was not too stringent; a concrete assessment had been made of all the information in the case and a requirement for a preponderance of probability had not been applied in the Board’s assessment. 4.4 Concerning domestic legal proceedings, the State party agrees with the decision of the Borgarting Court of Appeals to reverse the judgement of the Oslo District Court, which had found that the author was a genuine Christian. The State party cites the full reasoning of the Court of Appeals, which considered the testimony of country adviser G, who observed that Islam permeates Afghan society, including its legislation, judicial system, 6