Advance unedited version CCPR/C/132/D/2651/2015 Annex Joint Opinion by Committee members Shuichi Furuya, Photini Pazartzis and Vasilka Sancin (Dissenting) 1. We are unable to concur with the View’s conclusion that the authors’ removal to Ethiopia, if implemented, would violate their rights under articles 6 and 7 of the Covenant. 2. According to the jurisprudence of the Committee, it is generally for the organs of a State party to examine the facts and evidence of the case in question in order to determine whether a real risk of irreparable harm exists when a person is deported to the country of his or her origin, unless it can be established that the assessment was clearly arbitrary or amounted to a manifest error or denial of justice. 1 This means that, in deportation cases, the Committee departs from the assessment by the State party of the risks, only when it establishes on the basis of evidence and information submitted to it that the State party’s assessment was substantively or procedurally clearly arbitrary, manifestly erroneous or constituted a denial of justice. Furthermore, it is an author who bears the burden of proof to establish that the assessment by the State party was such as to fail the abovementioned standard. 3. In the present case, the State party provided the authors with sufficient occasions to explain their situation and then made an individualized assessment in light of their factual backgrounds. In fact, the author does not identify any irregularity in the decision-making process or any risk factors that the authorities of the State party failed to consider. At variance between the authors and the State party is the assessment of those factors they recognized. 4. The View, supporting the authors’ claim, finds that “the author provided sufficient explanations and substantiation where possible to demonstrate that she and her son would face risks of death and torture, by providing sufficient details that she had to flee Ethiopia three weeks after the torture and death of her father, a leader of the OLF, that not only she, but her siblings and her mother faced threats and had to flee as well.” In our opinion, however, this is not an appropriate finding. The author has provided no detailed explanation on what happened in three weeks after her father’s death nor the reason why she decided to leave Ethiopia. Nor has she explained clearly why her mother had been summoned for an interview with the Ethiopian authorities, as well as the reason her mother and other family members had not decided to leave Ethiopia with her and were able to live there for a long time if they actually faced threats and abuses. As the State party observed, one of the main grounds for risk assessment was that she could stay in Ethiopia for three weeks without having been contacted by the Ethiopian authorities (para.4.6) and her mother was able to continue living there until 2010 without experiencing any reprisal (para. 4.7). The author must have known that these factors were crucial points for assessment. Nevertheless, as far as we read the author’s comments on the State party’s observations (paras. 5.5 and 7.2), there is no convincing explanation that, contrary to the State party’s observations, she and her family members were in reality under the threat of death or ill-treatment in Ethiopia. 5. In addition, the author has not provided sufficient information to demonstrate, as a matter of her specific and individual risk, that she would be at risk of death and torture or illtreatment because of her involvement in the activities for the OLF in Sudan. The State party observes that she had no contact with the Sudanese authorities at any time during her stay in Sudan, nor was she identified or registered in connection with OLF activities in Sudan. 600 to 700 people had been present at the OLF meetings she attended and, according to the State party, anonymous participation in demonstrations with hundreds of participations may not itself lead to persecution (para. 4.9). The State party also observes that there are no specific reasons to assume that the Sudanese authorities have any information or documentation concerning her involvement in OLF activities that could have been transmitted to the Ethiopian authorities (para. 4.11). Furthermore, the author has not provided any clear rebuttal to those State party’s observations. 1 K v. Denmark (CCPR/C/114/D/2393/2014), para. 7.4; Q.A. v. Sweden (CCPR/C/127/D/3070/2017), para. 9.5; A.E. v Sweden (CCPR/C/128/D/3300/2019), para 9.3. 11