CCPR/C/132/D/2787/2016Advance unedited version by the Danish Immigration Service and at the first appointment with the Danish Refugee Council. According to the submissions made, the authors and their children had not experienced any personal conflicts during their stay in Bulgaria and were essentially in good health. 4.12 The State party further argues that it is incumbent upon the relevant authors to explain why the decision of the Board is manifestly unreasonable or arbitrary in nature, referring to the Committee’s jurisprudence.8 It also reiterates that, in their communication of 15 July 2016 to the Committee, the authors did not provide any details that were not taken into account by the Board in its decision of 18 July 2016. The authors’ communication merely reflects that they disagree with the assessment of their specific circumstances and the background information made by the Board. In their communication to the Committee, the authors also failed to identify any irregularity in the decision-making process or any risk factors that the Board had failed to take into account. Therefore, the authors are in fact trying to use the Committee as an appellate body to have the factual circumstances of their claims reassessed by the Committee. The Committee must give considerable weight to the findings of fact by the Board, according to which the authors have failed to establish that there are substantial grounds for believing that they face a real risk of being subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment if deported to Bulgaria. 4.13 In conclusion, the State party submits that the communication should be considered inadmissible as the authors had not exhausted all available domestic remedies. The part of the authors’ communication that relates to article 24(1) of the Covenant should be rejected as inadmissible ratione materiae pursuant to the Rules of Procedure. Should the Committee find the communication admissible, the State party invites it to conclude that a real risk of a violation of article 7 of the Covenant has not been established. The State party also requests that the Committee review its request for interim measures as the authors have failed to render it probable that they would face a risk of irreparable harm, if deported to Bulgaria. Finally, the State party draws attention to the case law of the Danish immigration authorities, which indicates, inter alia, the recognition rates for asylum claims from the ten largest national groups of asylum-seekers decided by the Board between 2013 and 2015 (with high refugee status recognition rates for the Syrians). Authors’ comments on the State party’s observations 5.1 On 28 February 2017, the authors submitted comments on the State party’s observations, requesting the Committee to uphold its request for interim measures. 5.2 They argue that a prima facie case has been made, and that they have exhausted domestic remedies at the time of the initial communication, since their appeal against the decision of the Danish Immigration Service to the Refugee Appeals Board did not have suspensive effect. The negative decision of the Board was adopted on 18 July 2016. Therefore, the authors exhausted all effective domestic remedies that were available to them, as required by article 5 (2)(b) of the Optional Protocol. 5.3 As regards the admissibility of the authors’ claims under article 24, Article 2 of the Covenant should be understood to reflect an obligation not to remove a person to another state where there is a real risk of irreparable harm. This obligation is not limited to articles 6 and 7 of the Covenant9 as the irreparable harm may arise under provisions of the Covenant other than articles 6 and 7 of the Covenant. They added that the Committee has never comprehensively addressed to what extent irreparable harm resulting from violation of Covenant rights other than articles 6 and 7 may give rise to the non-refoulement obligation. However, the Committee has not foreclosed the possibility of recognizing such non- 8 9 6 A.S.M. and R.A.H. v. Denmark (CCPR/C/117/D/2378/2014), paras. 8.3 and 8.6; P.T. v. Denmark (CCPR/C/113/D/2272/2013), para. 7.3; N. v. Denmark (CCPR/C/114/D/2426/2014), para. 6.6; K. v. Denmark (CCPR/C/114/D/2393/2014), paras. 7.4-7.5; X and X v. Denmark (CCPR/C/112/D/2186/2012), para. 7.5; and Z. v. Denmark (CCPR/C/114/D/2329/2014), para. 7.4. Human Rights Committee, General Comment 31: The nature of the general legal obligation imposed on States Parties to the Covenant, 26 May 2004, CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/Add.13 (2004), para. 12.