CCPR/C/121/D/2419/2014 fighting age and as a member of an ethnic and religious minority, and owing to his conversion to Christianity.5 3.2 With regard to article 26 of the Covenant, the author claims that other asylum seekers in a similar situation — who had converted to Christianity after the Refugee Appeals Board had dismissed their initial asylum request — have been granted international protection. The fact that he only converted after the first negative decision of the Board cannot be used as proof that his religious conviction is not genuine. In addition, he is prevented from bringing his case before a court, as under Danish law the decisions of the Board are final and cannot be appealed. Furthermore, his latest asylum appeal has been made on the grounds of his conversion to Christianity and has never been considered by the Danish Immigration Service. State party’s observations on admissibility and merits 4.1 On 8 December 2014, the State party submitted its observations on admissibility and merits. It maintains that the communication is inadmissible as manifestly ill-founded. With regard to the claims under articles 6 and 7 of the Covenant, it has been established neither that there are substantial grounds for believing that the author is in danger of being deprived of his life or being subjected to torture or to other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment if returned to Afghanistan, nor that articles 13 or 26 of the Covenant have been violated in connection with the procedure to reopen the author’s asylum case, which has been examined by the Danish authorities. 4.2 Should the Committee find the author’s communication admissible, the State party submits that the author has not sufficiently established that his rights under articles 6 or 7 of the Covenant would be violated if he were returned to Afghanistan or that articles 13 or 26 have been violated in the present case. 4.3 The State party provides a detailed description of the asylum proceedings under the Aliens Act of Denmark and of the organization and competence of the Refugee Appeals Board.6 It recalls that the decisions of the Board are based on an individual and specific assessment of the relevant case and that the statements made by an individual regarding his or her grounds for seeking asylum are assessed in the light of all relevant evidence, including what is known about conditions in the country of origin. The Board is responsible not only for examining and bringing to light information on the specific facts of the case, but also for providing the necessary background material, including information on the situation in the asylum seeker’s country of origin or first country of asylum. 7 4.4 The decision of 25 June 2014 to refuse to reopen the author’s asylum proceedings was made by the Refugee Appeals Board, represented by the judge who had chaired the specific board that had made the original decision in the author’s case, in accordance with section 53 (10) and (11) of the Aliens Act and section 48 of the Board’s rules of procedure. The Board found itself unable to rely on the three additional documents provided by the author as, in view of their nature and the timing of their production, they had seemed fabricated for the purpose (see paragraph 2.10 above). Moreover, according to the State party, forged documents are widely used and easy to obtain in Afghanistan.8 5 6 7 8 4 The author refers to a memorandum dated 6 August 2013 by the UNHCR Director of International Protection, in which he informed all UNHCR Directors about the 2013 UNHCR Eligibility Guidelines for Assessing the International Protection Needs of Asylum Seekers from Afghanistan and its main recommendations (document available in the case file). He also refers to a letter dated 1 May 2012 from the UNHCR Acting Senior Regional Legal Officer, Regional Office for the Baltic and Nordic Countries, relating to the failed asylum case of an Afghan who had converted to Christianity, which provides a summary of the position of UNHCR regarding, inter alia, the credibility of the convert, the conversion after departure and the future behaviour of the convert to avoid persecution (document available in the case file). See communication No. 2379/2014, Obah Hussein Ahmed v. Denmark, Views adopted on 7 July 2016, paras. 4.1-4.3. The State party refers to the information available from www.fln.dk/da/baggrundsmateriale. The State party refers to the report dated May 2012 of the fact-finding mission of the Danish Immigration Service to Kabul, entitled “Country of Origin Information for Use in the Asylum