CAT/C/54/D/550/2013
involved in the resistance movement in Chechnya. As a result of their activities, the sons
had to flee to Sweden, and were granted asylum there in 2006 and 2007, respectively.
2.2
In 2008, the first complainant visited his sons in Sweden for the first time. He then
returned to Chechnya. In late 2008, the complainants started to be harassed by armed and
masked men they considered to be members of the Chechen authorities. The men stated that
they wanted to “lay their hands” on the sons who had escaped to Sweden. The situation
escalated over time, as intrusions were repeated and became more aggressive.
2.3
In November 2010, armed and masked men entered the family apartment, tore up
their passports for travelling abroad so as to prevent them from leaving the Russian
Federation, and threatened to abduct the third complainant. The men beat the first
complainant as he attempted to protect his daughter, and threatened to shoot him. They
fired warning shots inside the apartment. The daughter was then sent to Grozny to stay
temporarily with her uncle as a measure of protection, and the first and second
complainants managed to obtain new passports through bribes.
2.4
On 26 December 2010, the complainants entered Sweden and on 29 December they
applied for asylum. On 13 October 2011, the Swedish Migration Board rejected their
application on grounds that there was no “general situation of strife” in the Russian
Federation and no evidence that the armed, masked men were linked to the Chechen
authorities. The Board considered that the men who attacked the complainants were
ordinary criminals, and that the family should turn to the Russian authorities for protection.
It also suggested that the family should have taken refuge somewhere else in the Russian
Federation, and raised the fact that the family did not immediately leave, but stayed for one
additional month in Chechnya.
2.5
On an unspecified date, the negative decision of the Migration Board was appealed
to the Migration Court. On 25 September 2012, the Court rejected the complainants’
appeal, noting that the Russian Federation has the capacity to, and would, offer protection
to its citizens. It observed that the names in the arrest warrants submitted as evidence by the
complainants were not the same as the names in the family’s passports, as they were spelled
differently. On 29 November 2012, the Migration Court of Appeal denied the complainants
leave to appeal. The decision of the Migration Board of 13 October 2011 to reject the
complainants’ asylum application therefore became final.
2.6
On 18 January 2013, the complainants applied again to the Migration Court,
requesting to “inhibit” the enforcement of the decision rejecting their asylum application.
They submitted new written evidence supporting the fact that the parents had been
summoned to be interrogated by the district prosecutor in Grozny for having helped their
sons to escape to Sweden, and that an arrest warrant had been issued by the prosecutor
against them. On 4 March 2013, the Migration Board denied their request on the basis that
nothing new had been presented by the complainants. On 23 April 2013, the Migration
Court stated once again that the family should apply for protection to the Russian
authorities.
The complaint
3.
The complainants claim that should they be deported to the Russian Federation there
are substantial grounds to believe that the harassment and persecution they previously
experienced in Chechnya will escalate further. In particular, they stress that the father has
been directly threatened with extrajudicial execution, and that the daughter has been
threatened with abduction. The complainants also point out that the general human rights
situation in Chechnya is such that the use of torture and other cruel and inhuman treatment
is widespread. Their forcible deportation to the Russian Federation would constitute a
violation, by the State party, of article 3 of the Convention.
3