CEDAW/C/62/D/56/2013 The State party also noted that the author had not specified who had committed the acts of harassment or when they had taken place. 4.6 The State party also submitted that the author had not sufficiently substantiated which of her rights under the Convention would be violated if she were returned to Pakistan. It noted that the author had listed several articles, but without describing in detail how they might be considered relevant to her case. 4.7 Regarding the author’s fear of persecution by A., the State party submitted that that part of the communication was incompatible with the provisions of the Convention, pursuant to article 4 (2) (b) of the Optional Protocol. It stated that article 2 (d) of the Convention did not encompass an obligation for State parties to refrain from expelling a person who might risk pain or suffering inflicted by a private person, without the consent or acquiescence of the relevant State. 2 The State party noted that, in addition, the author had failed to sufficiently substantiate why the Pakistani authorities would be unable to obviate the alleged risk by providing her with appropriate protection. Additional information from the author 5. On 5 November 2013, the author’s counsel informed the Committee that, upon her return to Pakistan on 13 July 2013, the author had converted to Islam, in August, to avoid persecution. The author presented extracts regarding her conversion taken from several local newspapers. Additional observations by the State party 6.1 On 13 January 2014, the State party presented an opinion from the Danish Refugee Appeals Board regarding the author’s additional submission of 5 November 2013. The Board did not find that the newspaper articles presented by the author concerning her conversion rendered it probable that, immediately after her return to Pakistan, she had been subjected to harassment such that she had had to convert to Islam. The Board attached importance to the fact that the author had been born a Christian and lived all her life in Pakistan as a Christian, as well as to the extent of the harassment that she had experienced in that context. The Board also referred to a country of origin information report by the Home Office of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, published on 9 August 2013, in which it was stated that it was possible to pay for or to use private contacts to have a newspaper article published depicting a situation of persecution in Pakistan. The State party also referred to the 2013 annual report of the Commission on International Religious Freedom, according to which, every year, many young Christian girls in Pakistan are kidnapped, forced to convert to Islam and get married and are then raped. In that regard, the State party noted that the author was an older woman. It also submitted that the general situation of Christians in Pakistan had been evaluated by the Board and found not to be of such a nature as to consider the author a persecuted person. __________________ 2 15-21608 Reference is made to the jurisprudence of the Committee against Torture, namely communications Nos. 130/1999 and 131/1999, V.X.N. and H.N. v. Sweden, views adopted on 15 May 2000, para. 13.8, and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, namely H.L.R. v. France, judgement of 29 April 1997 (application No. 24573/94), para. 40; Salah Sheekh v. the Netherlands, judgement of 11 January 2007 (application No. 1948/0 4), para. 137; and NA v. the United Kingdom, judgement of 17 July 2008 (application No. 25904/07), para. 110. 5/7