CAT/C/57/D/529/2012 evidence to indicate that she would be sought by either the police or private individuals seeking to harm her if she returned to an area of Pakistan outside of her home region. 4.7 The complainant had also alleged that she faced the risk of arrest, detention and imprisonment by State actors in Pakistan and that she faced a risk to her life by private citizens in Pakistan. The State party maintains that these allegations are inadmissible because they are incompatible with article 3 of the Convention. 4.8 The State party submits that the complainant comes from a rural region of Lahore District in the Punjab province of Pakistan; she married B.A. in March 1977 and between 1978 and 1994 they had three daughters and three sons. She was issued a visitor’s visa for Canada on 28 August 2006 at Islamabad and arrived in Canada, without her husband or other family members, on 11 January 2007. Five days later, she applied for protection as a refugee under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, alleging “a well-founded fear of persecution based on race”. She also claimed protection as a “person in need of protection” under the Act, alleging that if returned to Pakistan she would face a danger of torture, a risk to her life and/or a risk of cruel and unusual treatment or punishment. According to the materials submitted by the complainant, B.A. divorced her in 2010 and he and their children continue to reside in Pakistan. In the personal information form that she submitted to the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, the complainant gave her account of an escalating land dispute with her husband’s uncle and his sons. The dispute, which allegedly occurred over at least 15 years, led to legal action initiated by the complainant and to acts of harassment and physical violence against her. The dispute culminated in a false accusation of adultery and ultimately led her to leave Pakistan. The State party notes that the narrative does not include many key dates. 4.9 The complainant’s claim for protection under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act was heard by the Refugee Protection Division of the Immigration and Refugee Board on 24 November 2009. The Division is an independent, quasi-judicial, specialized tribunal that considers applications by non-nationals seeking protection, based on a fear of persecution, torture or other serious violations of their human rights if they were to be removed to their countries of origin. The Division not only determines whether a claimant is a “Convention refugee”4 within the meaning of the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, but also whether the claimant is a “person in need of protection”5 for 4 5 See section 96 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act of Canada: “A Convention refugee is a person who, by reason of a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion, (a) is outside each of their countries of nationality and is unable or, by reason of that fear, unwilling to avail themself of the protection of each of those countries; or (b) not having a country of nationality, is outside the country of their former habitual residence and is unable or, by reason of that fear, unwilling to return to that country.” See section 97 (1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act of Canada: “A person in need of protection is a person in Canada whose removal to their country or countries of nationality or, if they do not have a country of nationality, their country of former habitual residence, would subject them personally (a) to a danger, believed on substantial grounds to exist, of torture within the meaning of Article 1 of the Convention Against Torture; or (b) to a risk to their life or to a risk of cruel and unusual treatment or punishment if (i) the person is unable or, because of that risk, unwilling to avail themself of the protection of that country, (ii) the risk would be faced by the person in every part of that country and is not faced generally by other individuals in or from that country, (iii) the risk is not inherent or incidental to lawful sanctions, unless imposed in disregard of accepted international standards, and 5