Principal facts
The applicant, R.C., is an Iranian national, born in 1965. He arrived in Sweden in October 2003 and requested asylum. He submitted that he had taken part in a demonstration in July 2001 criticising the Iranian government following which he had been arrested and tortured and detained for almost two years before he managed to escape. He left the country illegally, hidden in a lorry. He had never been formally tried in court but every third month during his detention there had been a sort of religious trial where he had been put before a priest who had decided on his continued imprisonment.
During an investigation conducted into his asylum application by the Migration Board in June 2004, R.C. maintained his story and added some new elements. In particular he submitted that during one of the “religious trials” by a revolutionary court, during which there had been a lot of people, he managed to escape having changed into civilian clothes in the court’s bathroom brought to him by his friends. Following his escape preceded by him hiding for two months in a friend’s house, his father and wife had been questioned by the police about his whereabouts. R.C. also submitted that he had never been a member of a political party and never formally charged or convicted of any crime and that he was convinced he would be executed if he returned home. In addition, the applicant claimed that he suffered from headaches, sleeplessness, depression and panic attacks as a result of the torture he had been subjected to in the Iranian prison. He provided a medical certificate of February 2005 carrying the doctor’s conclusion that the injuries found on his body could well originate from torture.
The national authorities doubted the credibility of his account of events, underlining that revolutionary courts were generally not open to the public, that the applicant had not substantiated his allegations and that there was no proof that he would be tortured or ill-treated if he returned to Iran. His asylum application was refused.
Following a request by the applicant, the Court indicated to the Swedish Government under Rule 39 (interim measures) of its Rules of Court that he should not be deported until further notice. In November 2007, the Migration Board stayed the enforcement of the deportation order against him until further notice.
Several organisations reporting on the situation in Iran noted an increase in human rights violations in Iran after the 2009 elections, including excessive police force, arbitrary arrests, killings, ill-treatment of detainees and the use of torture to obtain confessions. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe adopted a resolution in 2009 in which it urged the Iranian authorities not to use violence during peaceful demonstrations and called upon governments of other countries not to expel Iranian citizens to Iran.
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