CCPR/C/115/D/2474/2014 been rejected by the Directorate. The Court considered that the timing of his conversion gave a further reason for taking a critical view of his motives for converting. 4.10 The Court of Appeals also referred to the author’s statement that he came into contact with Christianity through an Iranian asylum seeker, P, who was himself a convert. The author testified before the Court that he was unaware that conversion could constitute grounds for asylum when he was baptized. The Court stated that it did not believe the author on this issue, referring to the aforementioned discussion of conversion cases. The Court noted that conversion to Christianity has been invoked as a ground for asylum since the end of 2005/beginning of 2006 and exclusively by Muslim asylum seekers from the Islamic Republic of Iran and Afghanistan. The Court found it improbable that Norway’s asylum practice was not generally known at the asylum reception centre and determined that the author learned about it during his stay in Norway, and certainly from P at the latest. On this point as well, the Court found that the author had testified in a manner that undermined his credibility. 4.11 The Court of Appeals considered “the fact that religious conversion can take place in several different ways”. Specifically in the author’s case, the Court stated that it “finds reason to point out that he has only attended school for seven years. It must therefore be expected that a religious development will be more of an emotional experience than an intellectual process”. However the Court considered that the author’s “low level of reflection is nevertheless striking. He has not been able to provide a well-thought-through explanation of his motives for converting or of the serious consequences conversion can have for himself and his family”. The Court found that there were “several objective circumstances” indicating that the author’s conversion was not genuine: (a) Only a short time had elapsed from the author’s first contact with Christianity until his baptism, and he had received no “formal training”; (b) The author had testified that although his family, and especially his father, had a devout Islamic lifestyle, he himself did not really believe in God, which rendered his “speedy conversion to Christianity” even more remarkable, as he went from a virtually nonreligious starting point to suddenly having a strong need to believe in God; (c) When the author was repeatedly asked before the Board to explain the background to his decision to convert from Islam to Christianity, he stated that he was tired of his father nagging him to pray, fast and read the Koran and that things are “much freer in Christianity”; the Board found this to be a superficial reason for conversion; (d) When asked by the Board to explain the consequences of converting, the author stated that he had given his heart to Jesus and had accepted that he could be killed. Given the status of Islam in Afghan society and what a break with Islam means for a Muslim in Afghanistan, the Board determined that the author had not thought about the consequences, both practical and emotional, his conversion could have for his family; (e) During the hearing before the Court of Appeals, the author’s testimony was in all material respects identical to his testimony before the Board; he did not express a more reflective attitude, nor did he express any thoughts or concerns about the conversion having negative consequences for his family. The importance of Islam in Afghan society rendered it unlikely that the author would be “this superficial about his decision if his conversion were genuine”; (f) Elements in his original asylum statement further undermined his credibility, as he first explained that he had been kidnapped and that the kidnappers’ motive was to obtain a ransom, whereas in his appeal, he modified that statement and claimed that his father had told him that his kidnapping was due to an old family feud over land that had caused his family to flee to the Islamic Republic of Iran; 9