Alleged victim:R.S. State party:Denmark Date of complaint:19 November 2002 The Committee against Torture, established under article 17 of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Meeting on 19 May 2004, Having concluded its consideration of complaint No. 225/2003, submitted to the Committee against Torture by Mr. R.S. under article 22 of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Having taken into account all information made available to it by the complainant, his counsel and the State party, Adopts the following decision under article 22, paragraph 7, of the Convention. 1.1The complainant is Mr. R.S., an Indian citizen, who at the time of the initial submission resided in Denmark, where he sought asylum. His current whereabouts are unknown. He claims that his return to India after the rejection of his refugee claim would constitute a violation by Denmark of article 3 of the Convention. He is represented by counsel. 1.2In accordance with article 22, paragraph 3, of the Convention, the Committee transmitted the complaint to the State party on 21 November 2002. The facts as submitted 2.1The complainant grew up in Bilga (India), in the Philour area, in the district of Punjab, where he lived together on a farm with his parents and two brothers. All family members are Sikhs. The complainant went to school for seven years, before entering into the family farming business. While his uncle and older brother became members of the Sikh Students Federation and the Khalistan Commando Force (KCF), the complainant did not himself participate in any political or religious organizations. In 1994, the complainant’s uncle was killed by the police. The avowed aim of the KCF is to obtain independence for Punjab. 2.2In 1995, the complainant’s older brother returned to India from Germany, where he had applied for asylum. The police arrested and detained him for about 10-12 days after his arrival, and detained him further on several occasions, until he disappeared on an unspecified date. On 15 September 1997, the police contacted the complainant and asked for information on the whereabouts of his brother. When he replied that he did not know his brother’s whereabouts, he was arrested and detained for 10 days. He contends that he was subjected to torture in detention. In April 1998, the complainant was again questioned about the whereabouts of his brother by the police; he was allegedly threatened with death if he did not provide this information. 2.3The complainant was subsequently detained by the police on several occasions, and subjected to torture when in detention. This included beating with a cane, being subjected to electrical shocks, and being hung upside down. According to the complainant, his problems with the police arose from the fact that he transmitted messages sent between his brother and other people from a neighbour village. He was detained 10 to 12 times in total before, in June 1999, he escaped to Denmark, with the assistance of a paid agent. 2.4The complainant arrived in Denmark on 17 July 1999 without valid travel documents. He applied for asylum the next day. A brother of his already resided in Denmark since 1998, and had been granted a residence permit pursuant to article 7, paragraph 1, of the Immigration Act. The complainant applied for a residence permit under the same regulations, but the Danish Immigration Board rejected his application on 12 February 2001. 2.5The complainant then appealed to the Danish Refugee Board, which rejected his claim on 28 June 2001. The majority of the Board members did not believe that the complainant risked persecution if returned to India. They considered that the complainant had not been a member of a political organization in India, nor that he had performed any political activity of importance. Furthermore, they considered it unlikely that he had been subjected to torture while in detention, since his description of the events was unclear, and his allegations were not supported by the findings of the Institute for Forensic Medicine (IFM) in Denmark, in a report dated 16 November 2000. The IFM report concluded that the complainant displayed several physical injuries which did not relate to the torture described, but that he felt pain in his left shoulder which could have been caused by the described torture. They also concluded that the complainant suffered from organic brain damage, but no symptoms of a post-traumatic stress syndrome. This finding was supported by a report from the Forensic Psychiatric Clinic dated 30 October 2000. 2.6When applying for a reopening of his case, the complainant’s counsel provided another medical report, from the Amnesty International Medical Group, dated 28 September 2001, which concluded that some physiological findings were compatible with the complainant’s description of torture. On 22 July 2002, the Danish Refugee Board rejected the request for review, and the complainant thus is not entitled to stay legally in Denmark. The complaint 3.The complainant fears that, if returned to India, he will be arrested, and tortured or ill treated in detention, because of his and his brother’s links to the Sikh Student Federation and the Khalistan Commando Force. The complainant’s repeated experience of detention and torture indicates that he risks such treatment upon return to India, and that his deportation by Denmark therefore would amount to a violation of article 3 of the Convention.