CEDAW/C/72/D/96/2015 6.3 The State party recalls that the Refugee Appeals Board, in its decision of 31 August 2015, found that the author had failed to establish that she would risk persecution or abuse under sections 7 (1) and (2) of the Aliens Act were she to be returned to Chechnya. 6.4 The State party recalls that the Refugee Appeals Board rejected the author ’s asylum request because it did not consider her account of the events to be credible or likely. 22 It refers to a report produced by the Danish Immigration Service in January 2015, 23 in which it was indicated that “it would be very rare, if at all, that the Chechen authorities pay attention to distant relatives and such relatives would not be punished or exposed to beatings or torture”. Given that the author entered Denmark with a genuine temporary passport issued by the authorities in Grozny on 4 August 2014, the State party considers it unlikely that authorities would have issued her a document allowing her to leave the Russian Federation if they were still interested in her. Furthermore, the State party recalls that the Refugee Appeals Board rejected her claim that she was at risk of being the victim of an honour killing. 24 Given the author’s claim that she only told her mother about the rape and that her mother denied the rumours circulating in the town, the State party considers it unlikely that her brother would have nevertheless believed those rumours. It also considers it unlikely that the author’s brother was the only person who wanted to kill her and that the rest of the author’s family either had not heard the rumours or remained willing to help her despite having done so. 6.5 In relation to the summonses dated 9 April 2015 and 21 April 2015, which the author produced on 22 January 2016, the State party submits that the author had sufficient opportunity to produce new information during the asylum proceedings. It recalls that she had been aware of the summonses since 26 June 2015 and considers it peculiar that she only produced them on 14 January 2016. 6.6 The State party recalls that the author, in her submission dated 17 September 2015, rejected the assessment of facts and evidence by the Refugee Appeals Board but did not demonstrate that the assessment was arbitrary or amounted to a denial of justice. It reiterates that the author failed to identify any irregularity in the Board ’s decision-making process or any considerations which the Board had failed to properly take into account. Furthermore, the State party observes that the author did not dispute the Board’s credibility assessment. In relation to credibility assessments in general, it refers to cases before the European Court of Human Rights 25 and communications submitted to the Human Rights Committee, 26 in which it was reasoned that the State party is better placed to assess the facts and evidence of the author ’s case and his or her credibility. The State party therefore relies on the Board’s decision of 31 August 2015, which was made following a comprehensive examination of the author ’s case, __________________ 22 23 24 25 26 19-05867 The State party refers to the decision of 31 August 2015, in which the Board indicated that it could not accept the author’s claim that she had “a conflict with the authorities and, as a result, with her family”. The State party refers to page 52 of the report, “Security and human rights in Chechnya and the situation of Chechens in the Russian Federation”. The State party refers to the decision of 31 August 2015, in which the Board indicated that it found the author’s statement that she was allegedly being pursued by her family “non-credible”. The State party refers to R.C. v. Sweden (application No. 41827/07), para. 52, which contains the following statement: “as a general principle, the national authorities are best placed to assess not just the facts but, more particularly, the credibility of witnesses ”. The State party refers to P.T. v. Denmark, para. 7.3, in which the Human Rights Committee recalled its jurisprudence that important weight should be given to the assessment conducted by the State party, unless it was found that the evaluation was clearly arbitrary or amounted to a denial of justice, and that it was generally for the organs of States parties to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to review or evaluate facts and evidence in order to determine whether such a risk existed. 7/11