CAT/C/66/D/776/2016 Annex [Original: French] Individual dissenting opinion of Abdelwahab Hani 1. The Committee should have drawn attention to the fact that approximately three years elapsed between the two interviews of the complainants with the State Secretariat for Migration. This delay may explain some of the minor factual inconsistencies in the complainants’ statements to the authorities regarding peripheral issues that are not central to their asylum claim,1 such as the exact date of the police visits to the home of the male complainant’s brother, and the place where the complainants lost their passports. The State party does not contest the complainants’ identities, or the fact that they are Christian, or that the male complainant worked for the Swiss Embassy in Islamabad. The male complainant has given the Swiss authorities logical explanations for many of his statements. For example, while the authorities considered it illogical that the male complainant had not reported the threatening phone calls to his supervisors at the Embassy, he explains that he was afraid the police would be biased against him on account of his Christian faith. In view of the credible reports that the police in Pakistan have often failed to provide effective protection to religious minorities, including Christians, this is a reasonable explanation.2 2. The reasons put forward by the State party in determining that the first information report lacked probative value are unconvincing. Although the report was a copy, it is plausible that the police kept the original. The State party considered that the document was a forgery because the stamp bore the words in English “Police Station – Lahore – Liaqatabad”. But Pakistan was formerly a British colony, and the State party apparently did not check whether English was still commonly used in official documents. Regarding the late submission of the report, the complainants stated that they had provided the document within a few weeks of the date on which the State party’s authorities requested it. Nonetheless, the Swiss authorities failed to properly examine the report. Similarly, the mere presence of some English wording in the anonymous letter to the complainant, who was working in a foreign Embassy, is not necessarily enough to call the letter’s probative value into question. 3. Furthermore, although the male complainant has not provided any evidence to support his claim that an arrest warrant was issued against him in 2011, according to some reports the Penal Code does not require evidence to be provided following allegations of blasphemy. Credible reports also indicate that the requirement that senior officials must investigate blasphemy reports before they are registered with the courts is rarely implemented.3 While the State party considered that the complainants’ claims of fearing return to Pakistan were not credible because they had returned to the country voluntarily, the complainants asserted that they learned of the first information report only after their return to Pakistan, whereupon they promptly fled the country. The introductory report contains an accusation of blasphemy against the male complainant, and current conditions indicate substantial grounds for believing that individuals accused of blasphemy face a personal risk of being killed in Pakistan and cannot depend on effective protection from the authorities. 4. In light of the foregoing, the Committee should have concluded that the complainants’ removal to Pakistan would constitute a violation of article 3 of the Convention. 1 2 3 12 See Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Beyond Proof: Credibility Assessment in EU Asylum Systems (Brussels, May 2013), p. 42 (English only). See, inter alia, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), UNHCR Eligibility Guidelines for Assessing the International Protection Needs of Members of Religious Minorities from Pakistan, HCR/EG/PAK/17/01, January 2017, p. 39. Ibid.