Nuclear power station case

Concerning Ms. X.L vs Denmark for violation of articles 6,7 and 13 of CCPR.

The complainant arrived in Denmark in May 2014 and her asylum application was taken under consideration by the end of May 2014.

She claimed that she risks persecution because in the early 1980’s she was transferred to the Qinshan nuclear power station, in China. In year 2000 some employees in the workplace discovered serious problems with leakage, which in turn was a health risk for the employees at the nuclear power plant and residents in the area. As a result, four technicians and engineers collected material in order to report the problem to the appropriate department in charge, who however, felt that they created a sensation out of it and made people nervous, and affected the stability. The department then withdrew all the four technician’s material and monitored them. The four technicians and engineers continued to collect material to report on to a higher authority. This meant that the management finally persecuted the four employees personally and threatened them to their lives. Subsequently, the applicant was sought out by the authorities who tried to intimidate the applicant to disclose the material. The police were also sent to the applicant’s workplace and residence to search the sites. The applicant was warned by someone participating in the search which is why she managed to destroy the material beforehand. The applicant was summoned for questioning many times where she was threatened, intimidated and detained. They pushed the applicant to resign her position, but did not do anything further because she is a single mother. During Chinese New Year in 2014, the applicant was informed by a cousin that the authorities had decided to send her to labour camp no.404 in the Gobi desert in northwest China, where no one escapes from.

The applicant fears for her life on return to China as she will be sent to the labour camp in the Gobi desert. The Immigration service rejected the application for asylum. The Refugee Board upheld the decision on 4 February 2015 as they considered it unlikely that the applicant was suspected of being behind technical information on the plant’s internal network. The Refugee Board argues that she does not have access to this, as she did not have a technical job and as it may be assumed that the plant’s security department would be able to see who had put messages on this network.

Consequently a complaint was sent CCPR. The 3 former colleagues have been detained since 2001 and one of them has most likely died. The author fears that on return she will suffer the same treatment.

3. November 2023

CCPR 2583/2015
Comm: Human Rights