CCPR/C/115/D/2474/2014 7.4 The Committee recalls its jurisprudence that important weight should be given to the assessment conducted by the State party and that it is generally for the organs of States parties to review or evaluate the facts and evidence of the case in order to determine whether such a risk exists, unless it can be established that the evaluation was clearly arbitrary or amounted to a manifest error or denial of justice.16 7.5 The Committee notes the author’s assertion that the Court of Appeals erred by assessing whether he had genuinely converted to Christianity by the date of the Board’s last administrative decision on 15 December 2011 and not by the date on which the Court examined the author’s appeal in 2014. The Committee further notes the author’s claim that the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court failed to examine testimony from Church officials that he had a broad understanding of Christianity in November 2011 and failed to engage an independent expert to assess the genuineness of his conversion. The Committee observes that although the author argues that the Court of Appeals should have considered facts arising after 15 December 2011, he does not specify which such facts the Court allegedly disregarded in its decision dated 12 March 2014. The Committee further notes that the author has not responded to the State party’s argument that the Court of Appeals did not limit its assessment to facts that arose before 15 December 2011. The Committee observes that the Court of Appeals took into account the author’s participation in courses, conferences, Bible schools and missionary trips since January 2013; his membership in the Bykirka Church since October 2013; and the fact that the author had participated in seven to eight “double” teaching sessions with a priest in spring 2012. The Court stated that it “has also taken into account the development in [the author’s] knowledge and engagement after his baptism and also to a certain extent after the cut-off point of 15 December 2011”. Concerning the statements provided by the author dated August and September 2014 from three Church officials attesting to the genuineness of the author’s belief, the Committee notes that these statements postdate the decisions of the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court and therefore could not have been considered by either of the courts during their examination of the author’s claims. Moreover, the Committee notes that the Court of Appeals did take into account earlier testimony provided by each of the three Church officials and considered that their statements favoured the conclusion that the author’s conversion was genuine as of 15 December 2011. The Committee notes that the Court of Appeals nevertheless identified numerous other factors disfavouring the same conclusion. 17 The Committee also notes that the Court separately assessed whether the author’s mere allegation that he had converted represented a basis for asylum in and of itself and notes that the author has not contested the Court’s analysis on this issue. 18 The Committee therefore considers that the author has not demonstrated that the Court failed to take into account relevant facts or risk factors in its assessment of whether he would be subject to a risk of treatment contrary to article 7 if returned to Afghanistan and has therefore not shown that the Court’s assessment was arbitrary or amounted to a manifest error or a denial of justice in this regard. 7.6 The Committee also takes note of the author’s argument that the Court of Appeals erred by using a more stringent evidentiary threshold for converts and by failing to apply the principle according to which asylum seekers should be given the “benefit of the doubt”. The Committee observes that the Court, using historical data, drew a correlation between the State party’s asylum policy of allowing internal relocation of Afghan asylum seekers and a rise in the number of Afghan asylum seekers claiming that they had converted to Christianity after arriving in Norway. The Committee further takes note that the Court, citing relevant guidelines proposed by UNHCR, concluded from this correlation that 16 17 18 See, inter alia, K. v. Denmark, para. 7.4 and communication No. 1957/2010, Lin v. Australia, Views adopted on 21 March 2013, para. 9.3. See paras. 4.8-4.11 above. See para. 4.13 above. 15