CCPR/C/126/D/2346/2014 proceedings was made by the secretariat of the Board, with the approval of the Chair, and not by the Board itself. 6.3 In response to those claims, the State party refers to the Committee’s jurisprudence, which states that article 13 offers some of the guarantees afforded by article 14 (1) of the Covenant, but not the right to appeal12 or the right to a court hearing. 13 Since the author has not elaborated any further on the circumstances on which this part of the communication is based, the State party submits that he has failed to establish a prima facie case for the purpose of admissibility of his claims under article 13 of the Covenant. This part of the communication is therefore manifestly ill-founded and should be declared inadmissible. 6.4 Regarding the reopening of asylum proceedings, the State party generally observes that when the Board has decided a case, the asylum seeker may request the Board to reopen the asylum proceedings. The power to decide on the reopening of an asylum case is vested in the Chair, who is always a judge, of the panel that made the original decision in the case when, according to the contents of the request for reopening, there is no reason to assume that the Board will change its decision, or the conditions for being granted asylum must be deemed evidently satisfied.14 6.5 The secretariat of the Refugee Appeals Board assists the Executive Committee in drafting decisions, which become final when endorsed by the Chair of the Board. Subsequently, the decision is signed by an employee of the secretariat and delivered to the asylum seeker. Accordingly, both formally and in practice, decisions on reopening requests are made by the Chair of the relevant panel. The circumstance that a decision is signed by an employee of the secretariat does not alter this fact. Consequently, there is no basis for claiming that decisions refusing requests to reopen are made by the secretariat. 6.6 With reference to its observations of 11 August 2014, the State party submits that the author has been treated no differently from any other person applying for asylum (see paras. 4.9 and 4.19 above). He has therefore failed to establish a prima facie case for the purpose of admissibility of his claim under article 26 of the Covenant, as it has not been established that there are substantial grounds for believing that the author has been subjected to discrimination. This part of the communication should therefore be declared inadmissible. 6.7 With regard to the author’s alleged conversion to Christianity, the State party finds that there is no basis for setting aside the assessment by the Refugee Appeals Board that it would not constitute a violation of articles 6, 7 and 18 of the Covenant to remove the author to Afghanistan, as it still cannot be considered as a fact that his conversion from Islam to Christianity is genuine (see paras. 2.15 and 4.12 above). As regards the Board’s assessment of evidence on the author’s alleged conversion and his other asylum grounds, the State party refers to its observations of 11 August 2014. 6.8 The State party also draws the Committee’s attention to the fact that public debate in Denmark in general, and among asylum seekers in particular, has focused to a considerable degree on the significance of conversion, typically from Islam to Christianity, to the outcome of an asylum case. It is therefore common knowledge among asylum seekers and other parties within the field of asylum that information on conversion is considered grounds for asylum that may, depending on the circumstances, result in the granting of residence if the conversion is genuine and if it is accepted as a fact that the asylum seeker will practise his new faith upon return to his country of origin and therefore will be at such a risk of persecution in that country as to justify asylum. 6.9 Furthermore, the attention of the Committee is drawn to a report by the Norwegian Country of Origin Information Centre, Landinfo, on the situation of Christians and converts in Afghanistan published on 4 September 2013 (in Norwegian). Towards the end of the report, several sources state that, even if it becomes known in the country of origin that a person has indicated conversion as his grounds for seeking asylum in another country, that does not 12 13 14 See Mr. X and Ms. X v. Denmark (CCPR/C/112/D/2186/2012), para. 6.3. See Maroufidou v. Sweden (CCPR/C/12/D/58/1979). In this communication, the Committee did not dispute the assertion that an administrative review of a decision expelling an alien from Sweden did not amount to a violation of article 13 of the Covenant. See section 53 of the Aliens Act and rule 48 of the Board’s rules of procedure. 11