CASE OF F.G. v. SWEDEN
No violation of Article 2 - Right to life (Article 2 - Expulsion) (Conditional) (Iran);No violation of Article 3 - Prohibition of torture (Article 3 - Expulsion) (Conditional) (Iran)
André Potocki;Angelika Nußberger;Ann Power-Forde;Helena Jäderblom;Mark Villiger;Paul Lemmens
6. The applicant is an Iranian national who was born in 1962 and is currently in Sweden. 7. The applicant applied for asylum and a residence permit in Sweden on 16 November 2009. Before the Migration Board (Migrationsverket) he stated the following. In Iran, he had worked with persons, connected to different universities, who were known to oppose the regime. He had mainly worked on creating and publishing web pages. He and one of the other persons had been arrested in April 2007. He had been released after 24 hours and then hospitalised for ten days due to high blood pressure. Before the elections on 12 June 2009, the applicant had worked with the Green Movement, who had supported Mousavi for the presidential position, by spreading their message via the Internet. The day before the elections, he and his friends had been arrested, questioned and detained in the polling station overnight. After the elections, the applicant had participated in demonstrations and other activities. He had been arrested once again in September 2009 and imprisoned for twenty days. In October 2009 he had been taken before the Revolutionary Court, which had released him after a day on condition that he cooperate with the authorities and spy on his friends. He had agreed to the demands and given his business premises as a guarantee. He had also assured them that he would not participate in any demonstrations and that he would respond to their summons. Following his release in a park, he had found that his business premises had been searched. He had kept politically sensitive material there, which the authorities must have noticed, and his passport and other documents were gone. On 2 November 2009 the applicant had been summoned to appear before the Revolutionary Court. He had contacted a friend who, in turn, had obtained the help of a smuggler to enable him to leave the country. He had converted to Christianity after coming to Sweden. The applicant submitted, inter alia, a summons from the Revolutionary Court which stated that he should present himself at Evin prison in Teheran on 2 November 2009. 8. On 29 April 2010 the Migration Board rejected the request. It first stated that the applicant had not proven his identity but that he had made it and his citizenship probable. Turning to the applicant’s asylum story, the Board held that participation in demonstrations or affiliation with the Green Movement could not, of itself, give rise to a risk of persecution, ill-treatment or punishment on return to Iran. The Board noted that the applicant had changed his story in some parts during the proceedings; in particular, he had changed his statements concerning how many times he had been arrested. Furthermore, he had not been able to name the park where he had been released. Thus, the Board found reason to question whether he had been arrested at all. The Board further considered that the applicant’s political activities had been limited. After the questioning in 2007 and until the elections in 2009, he had been able to continue working with the web pages that contained the critical material, even though the authorities at this time were allegedly aware of his activities. For these reasons, the Board found that the applicant could not have been of interest to the authorities on account of his activities and the material he had in his possession. As to the applicant’s conversion to Christianity, the Board noted that he had not submitted a baptism certificate and that he had initially been unwilling to refer to his religious affiliation as grounds for asylum since this, he claimed, was a private matter. In these circumstances, it was not plausible that the applicant would risk persecution in Iran due to his religious affiliation. In conclusion, the Board found that the applicant had not shown that he was in need of protection in Sweden. 9. The applicant appealed to the Migration Court (Migrationsdomstolen), maintaining his claims and adding the following. The reason why, at first, he had not wanted to refer to his religious affiliation was that he had not wanted to trivialise the seriousness of his belief. He submitted a baptism certificate to the court. During the oral hearing, the applicant added that his computer had been taken from his business premises while he was in prison. Material that was critical of the regime was stored on his computer, since he had visited some web pages and had received caricature drawings via email. Therefore, there was enough evidence to prove that he was an opponent of the system. The summons to appear before the Revolutionary Court was submitted to the Migration Court. The applicant had not been summoned again and his family had not been targeted, or at least they had had no problems with which they wanted to burden him. He did not claim that his conversion constituted grounds for asylum but contended that it would clearly create problems for him if he had to return to Iran. 10. On 9 March 2011 the Migration Court rejected the appeal. It did not question the applicant’s story or that the uncertainties that had been pointed out by the Migration Board had been satisfactorily explained. However, as regards the summons to the Revolutionary Court which had been submitted to the Migration Board, the court found that, regardless of the authenticity of the document, it could not of itself substantiate a need for protection for the applicant. This was because the document was merely a summons and because no reason was given as to why the applicant should present himself at Evin prison. Turning to the applicant’s asylum story, the court considered that the information concerning his political activities had been vague and lacked details. The applicant had only stated that he had participated in the campaign for the opposition before the elections in 2009 by joining demonstrations and having contact with students and the student movement in order to help them with their web pages. Moreover, the applicant had stated that the material he had had in his possession when he was questioned in 2007 had not differed from the material he had in 2009. These circumstances, together with the fact that he had not been summoned again to appear before the Revolutionary Court after November 2009 and that his family had not been targeted, made the court doubt that his political activities had been of such a nature and extent to have resulted in the consequences he had alleged. The court found that the applicant had exaggerated the importance of his political activities and their consequences and therefore also the authorities’ interest in him. For these reasons, the court considered that the applicant had not made out that the Iranian authorities had a special interest in him and, thus, he was not in need of protection. 11. The applicant appealed to the Migration Court of Appeal (Migrationsöverdomstolen) which, on 8 June 2011, refused leave to appeal. 12. In September 2011 the applicant requested the Migration Board to stay the enforcement of his expulsion and to reconsider its previous decision due to new circumstances. He stated, inter alia, that the act of converting from Islam to another religion was punishable by death in Iran. 13. On 13 September 2011 the Migration Board found that no new circumstances had been presented which could justify staying the enforcement of the applicant’s expulsion order or granting him a residence permit. The Board noted that the applicant had, in the previous proceedings, stated that he had been baptised by a Christian church and that he had converted to Christianity. The Board also noted that the applicant had stated that his conversion was a personal matter which he did not wish to invoke as a ground for asylum. In the Board’s view, it was remarkable that the applicant now raised the question of conversion when he had been given the chance to elaborate on it during the oral hearing before the Migration Court but had declined to do so. 14. The applicant appealed to the Migration Court, maintaining his claims. 15. On 6 October 2011 the Migration Court rejected the appeal. It observed that the authorities had already been aware of the applicant’s conversion in the previous proceedings. Therefore, the conversion could not be considered as a “new circumstance”. The fact that the applicant had previously chosen not to invoke the conversion as a ground for asylum did not change the court’s assessment in this regard. 16. The applicant appealed to the Migration Court of Appeal which, on 22 November 2011, refused leave to appeal. 17. On 12 July 2011 the applicant lodged his application with the Court and requested it to apply Rule 39 of the Rules of Court in order to stay the enforcement of his expulsion. He stated that he had been active against the regime in Iran prior to, and during, the presidential elections in 2009. More importantly, he had converted to Christianity a couple of years earlier. The conversion had taken place prior to any decisions in his asylum proceedings. Conversion from Islam to another religion or faith was harshly punished by the Iranian system and society. 18. In support of his claims the applicant submitted, inter alia, a copy of a certificate, dated 13 April 2011, in which a pastor and a congregation member stated that they had first met the applicant in the summer of 2010, that he had converted from Islam to Christianity and that he had been a member of their congregation since February 2011. They also stated that their church services were broadcast on the Internet, meaning that anyone could have access to the transmissions.