CAT/C/55/D/555/2013 Factual background 2.1 The complainant is an ethnic Uighur from Urumqi in Xinjiang province. In 2005, he was working as a taxi driver and transported a passenger whom the Chinese authorities suspected of being a Uighur terrorist. Soon afterwards, despite the fact that the complainant was not personally acquainted with the passenger, he was arrested by the police, who interrogated him about the passenger’s whereabouts and activities. The complainant has never been a member of any political or religious association or organization, and has not otherwise been politically active. Given that he had no relevant knowledge about the passenger, he was unable to provide the police with any information. As a result, the police cut off three of his fingers.1 After two months in detention, the complainant was released without charge. 2.2 The complainant left China on an unspecified date and arrived in Denmark in August 2010. He applied for asylum on 27 June 2011. On 25 March 2013, the Danish Immigration Service rejected his application. On 11 July 2013, his appeal against that decision was dismissed by the Danish Refugee Appeals Board, which denied his requests for an oral hearing and a medical examination for signs of torture. 2.3 The complainant contends that he has exhausted all available and effective domestic remedies, as it is not possible to file appeals against decisions of the Refugee Appeals Board. He indicates that he has not submitted his complaint for consideration before any other international complaint mechanism. The complaint 3.1 The complainant claims that the State party would violate his rights under article 3 of the Convention if it deported him to China, as he would risk persecution, torture and inhumane treatment there. The complainant asserts that many Uighurs who were deported to China in 2011 and 2012 are now missing, after having been imprisoned in China upon their return,2 and that some of them were given prison sentences of between 11 months and 15 years for alleged separatist activities. 3.2 The complainant maintains that the State party violated article 3 of the Convention by breaching several procedural rights during the asylum process. First, the complainant submits that the Refugee Appeals Board denied him the right to a medical examination, which would have confirmed that three of his fingers had been cut off, thus indicating that he had been tortured. He maintains that article 3 of the Convention requires State parties to establish whether an asylum applicant was tortured before fleeing his country of origin. The complainant asserts that in its decision on communication No. 464/2011,3 the Committee found a violation of article 3 of the Convention owing to the fact that the Danish authorities had rejected the complainant’s request for a medical examination. 3.3 The complainant maintains that the Board wrongfully denied his request for an oral hearing. He submits that the Refugee Appeals Board rejected his affirmation that he is an ethnic Uighur after administering a language test. He maintains that, had his request for an oral hearing before the Board been granted, he would have been able to convince the Board 1 2 3 In further correspondence dated 17 July 2014, the complainant submitted a photograph showing two hands missing three fingers. The complainant cites unspecified reports of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Uyghur Human Rights Project, and country of origin and research information. He does not provide citations or copies of the reports. See communication No. 464/2011, K.H. v. Denmark, decision adopted on 23 November 2012, para. 8.8. 3