CAT/C/53/D/450/2011 in Switzerland3 and has published anti-government articles in newspapers and on Internet websites.4 He is now one of the leaders of the movement in Switzerland and is in charge, inter alia, of organizing meetings. 5 The complainant points out that separatists are labelled as traitors and terrorists by the Yemeni authorities and are monitored by State security agencies. As his political activities are very likely to have attracted the attention of the Yemeni security agencies, he faces a real risk of persecution, torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment if returned to Yemen. 3.5 The complainant considers that he has exhausted available domestic remedies. He has submitted two applications for asylum and brought appeals against the rejections by the Federal Office for Migration before the Federal Administrative Court, which dismissed his second application on 3 December 2010. State party’s observations on admissibility and on the merits 4.1 Referring to the Committee’s general comment No. 1 (1996) on Implementation of Article 3 of the Convention in the Context of Article 22 (Refoulement and Communications) (para. 8 (b)),6 the State party considers that torture or ill-treatment allegedly suffered by a complainant in the past is one of the factors that needs to be taken into account in assessing the risk of that person being subjected to torture or ill-treatment if returned to his or her country of origin. The complainant stated before the Swiss authorities that he had been detained between 26 December 2002 and 13 June 2003 in the criminal investigation prison of Sana’a. The security forces allegedly beat him and forced his head into a bucket filled with excrement several times before throwing him into a basin of ice-cold water to wash himself. He was also allegedly sodomized with a Coca-Cola bottle, which caused him bleeding and incontinence for four days. He was also reportedly beaten routinely by security agents with rifle butts and burned with cigarettes. During interrogations, he was allegedly beaten and hung by his feet until he lost consciousness, then locked up alone in a cell measuring approximately 1.5 by 2 square metres until he recovered, at which point he was moved to a communal cell with other detainees. The complainant was allegedly subjected to such ill-treatment every day throughout the first week and three times a week thereafter. 4.2 The State party maintains that the complainant has not provided a precise description of the events that occurred during his detention. At hearings on 2 October 2003 and 12 November 2004, the complainant displayed scars on his feet and indicated that he had a damaged kidney and was unable to concentrate or sleep. He stated that a doctor had found that he suffered from psychological problems. Nevertheless, the State party finds it hard to understand why the ill-treatment to which the complainant was subjected left no physical traces that could be documented in a medical report. The medical certificate provided by the complainant in 2004 has no probative value as evidence, since it is based 3 4 5 6 6 The complainant cites the following three events: a demonstration in Geneva on 7 January 2010 calling for the release of political prisoners; another in Bern on 21 April 2010 on the occasion of the sixteenth anniversary of the declaration of war by President Saleh against South Yemen; and a third on 27 November 2010, marking the forty-third anniversary of the establishment of the State of South Yemen and calling for its independence. The complainant attaches copies of six articles in Arabic with a translation in French. The complainant provides a certificate dated 30 January 2010 from the chief of the Swiss branch of the Southern Democratic Assembly confirming his activism within the group in Switzerland and another dated 26 January 2011 from a member of the executive committee of the party in the United Kingdom confirming that he is one of the leaders of the Swiss branch of the party. The paragraph numbers refer to the English version of document A/53/44 (Official Records of the General Assembly, Fifty-third Session, Supplement No. 44, annex IX); the corresponding paragraph numbers of the general comment in the French version (Documents officiels de l’Assemblée générale, cinquante-troisième session, Supplément no 44, annexe IX) are numbered from 294 to 302. GE.15-00369